The latest trip to the moon has been pushed back to 2025, and scientists have found that as the Moon shrinks, it’s causing landslides, moonquakes and other dangerous activity
NASA preparing for a long-term presence on the Moon
The Moon is getting smaller and it’s not good news for folks planning to live there . . . or on Earth.
A new study says the lunar rock shrinking could be a big problem for future space trips and people wanting to set up home on the moon. Scientists will have to wait until 2025 for their next Moon adventure.
They’ve discovered that as the Moon gets smaller, it causes landslides, shakes and other forms of devastation. It has lost over 150 feet around its middle in the last hundred million years because its surface breaks easily, making faults when bits of the crust push together.
Some smart space experts from the University of Maryland, United States, found out that this shrinkage is changing how the Moon’s surface looks near the south pole. That’s where NASA plans to send the Artemis III mission. They connected some cracks in this area to a really big moonquake that happened over 50 years ago, which was picked up by Apollo machines.
Having then checked to see if the ground in the area is safe, they found that some spots might have landslides if there’s a moonquake. Dr Thomas Watters explained: “Our modelling suggests that shallow moonquakes capable of producing strong ground shaking in the south polar region are possible from slip events on existing faults or the formation of new thrust faults.
“The global distribution of young thrust faults, their potential to be active and the potential to form new thrust faults from ongoing global contraction should be considered when planning the location and stability of permanent outposts on the Moon.”
Just like earthquakes, shallow moonquakes are caused by faults in the moon’s interior and can be strong enough to damage buildings, equipment and other human-made structures. But unlike earthquakes, which tend to last only a few seconds or minutes, shallow moonquakes can last for hours.
This could cause problems for NASA’s Artemis missions, which hope to establish a long-term presence on the Moon and eventually learn to live and work on another world through Moon-based observatories, outposts and settlements.