Caves on the Moon Could House Astronauts in the Future

When you look at the moon what do you see? Craters or holes? Well there are both on the surface of our moon and according to NASA the holes in the moons surface could mean big underground cave systems. NASA wants to utilize these cave systems as shelter for astronauts as it provides shelter from radiation, prevent the danger of micro meteorites, hardly any dust and there wouldn’t be any extreme day/night temperature swings.

The pits on the surface on the moon vary from anything around 5m in diameter to 900m. The pits are said to have formed when the moons surface collapsed into the cave below, as for the caves themselves they were apparently formed by ancient lava streams, so NASA says. There have been over 200 pits found on the surface so far and more are being discovered all the time.

NASA are wanting to explore these caves soon but they’ll probably send drones in first rather than humans, just to be safe. Once a vast majority has been explored NASA hope to be able to have astronauts using them as their accommodation whilst they are miles away from Earth. Wouldn’t mind a night in a moon cave myself.

Thanks to The Verge for supplying us with this information.

Image courtesy of The Verge.