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Moon

Giant Lava Tubes Possible On the Moon 124

Posted by Soulskill from the where-else-would-the-space-worms-hide dept.
schwit1 writes: New analysis of lunar geology combined with gravity data from GRAIL suggests the Moon could harbor lava tubes several miles wide. "David Blair, a graduate student in Purdue's Department of Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences, led the study that examined whether empty lava tubes more than 1 kilometer wide could remain structurally stable on the moon. 'We found that if lunar lava tubes existed with a strong arched shape like those on Earth, they would be stable at sizes up to 5,000 meters, or several miles wide, on the moon,' Blair said. 'This wouldn't be possible on Earth, but gravity is much lower on the moon and lunar rock doesn't have to withstand the same weathering and erosion. In theory, huge lava tubes – big enough to easily house a city – could be structurally sound on the moon.'" You can read their paper here (PDF). If this is so, then the possibility of huge colonies on the Moon increases significantly, as it will be much easier to build these colonies inside such lava tubes.
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Giant Lava Tubes Possible On the Moon

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  • I don't think this is a new idea. If I recall correctly, it's come up in science fiction over the decades based on a variety of theories.

    • Re:Not a new idea (Score:5, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 20, 2015 @10:55AM (#49301923)

      "The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress." Robert Heinlein, 1966.

      • Re:Not a new idea (Score:4, Informative)

        by Jhon ( 241832 ) on Friday March 20, 2015 @11:38AM (#49302339) Homepage Journal

        Same author -- The Menace from Earth (1957).

        Not sure if it were "lava tubes" (it's probably been over 30 years since I read that), but the idea of giant caverns being possible due to low gravity + high atm pressure was sure there.

        • Re:Not a new idea (Score:4, Informative)

          by Jhon ( 241832 ) on Friday March 20, 2015 @11:46AM (#49302417) Homepage Journal

          Wow. This internets thing is cool.

          From Menace:

          "Most of the stuff written about Bats' Cave gives a wrong impression. It's the air storage tank for the city, just like all the colonies have - the place where the scavenger pumps, deep down, deliver the air until it's needed. We just happen to be lucky enough to have one big enough to fly in. But it never was built, or anything like that; it's just a big volcanic bubble, two miles across, and if it had broken through, way back when, it would have been a crater."

          • it's just a big volcanic bubble, two miles across, and if it had broken through, way back when, it would have been a crater."

            So ... Heinlein was writing within the accepted science of his day (no surprise there), which was that the craters of the Moon (there were no others known) were primarily a volcanic phenomenon.

            In the 1960s there was a protracted dispute between various people in the geology community on determining the origin of the lunar craters. Eventually it was won by the people proposing that th

            • Re: (Score:2)

              by Jhon ( 241832 )

              "So ... Heinlein was writing within the accepted science of his day (no surprise there), which was that the craters of the Moon (there were no others known) were primarily a volcanic phenomenon. "

              I'm missing what you are trying to say -- is it that there were no volcanoes on the moon? Ever? If so, I believe you are wrong. Check out volcanic glass recovered by Apollo 17 and more recent papers on fairly RECENT volcanic flows (as early as 100 million years ago).

              Besides, by the 1950's, I believe it was gener

              • Gilbert may have proposed that lunar craters were impact structures a long time ago (I'm tired of fighting with 20-minute page loads so I'm not going to search for it. I wish the crane operator hadn't smacked the aft satellite dish.), but that doesn't mean that his explanation was accepted at the time. As I said, the strong consensus at the time that Heinlein was writing (that book) was the lunar craters were volcanic phenomena. About 1962-63, an aspirant astronaut and field geologist, Eugene Shoemaker, sta

                • Re: (Score:2)

                  by Jhon ( 241832 )

                  "Meanwhile, absolutely no-one has ever argued that all craters on the Moon are of impact origin and none of volcanic origin, in the same way that no-one has (TTBOMK, and I am actually a geologist) seriously argued that all terrestrial craters are of volcanic origin and none of impact origin. We know of craters and other structures on both bodies, of both origins."

                  Then you failed to indicate how his "science is wrong". A volcanic cavern or tube formed a few billion years ago or 20k years ago wouldn't real

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Dr. Zim ( 21278 )

      They're not claiming it's a new idea, they're saying that such tubes are structurally sound for the purpose.

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by hey! ( 33014 )

      Sure, and sci fi has had anti-gravity for many decades, but I'm pretty sure that information suggesting it was actually possible would still be news.

    • I don't recall tubes, but it's been a while. I do recall at least one dome (which I took to be a bubble in the rock), big enough to house offices and maybe a public space of "town square" size.

      And ice pockets big enough to mine. That one, I figured was just invented to make the story work and/or wishful thinking.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by nefus ( 952656 )
        While many certainly could have been wishful thinking, if you consider the number of inventions created by science fiction writers then the odds are good somebody put a lot of thought into reasoning out why tubes might be there and how they could be used.

  • "lava tubes" (Score:5, Funny)

    by rogoshen1 ( 2922505 ) on Friday March 20, 2015 @10:44AM (#49301837)

    What he really means are giant lunar worms (ala Herbert). Just you wait, the first lunar colony will be smashed to bits by lunar death worms defending their ancestral homes from pesky, tiny intruders.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by zlives ( 2009072 )

      can't wait for the lunar spice

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by sconeu ( 64226 )

      I think what he really means is that Luna already has the internet. The tubes are there.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Bob_Who ( 926234 )

      What he really means are giant lunar worms (ala Herbert)....

      Lunar Worms? Don't forget about the Lunar ticks.....

    • My first thought was the moon worms from Major Matt Mason [wikipedia.org] stories/toys of the late 60s/early 70s.

      Ah, ok:

      There was also a Big Little Book, Moon Mission written by George S Elrick and illustrated by Dan Spiegle published in 1968 that had the astronaut and his friends confront both giant rabbits and huge burrowing worms on the moon.

      I had the book and a couple of the astronaut toys. I didn't remember the rabbits until reading this...

    • "This is no cave."

  • Moon Internet (Score:5, Funny)

    by danbert8 ( 1024253 ) on Friday March 20, 2015 @10:49AM (#49301863)

    We could make a civilization within the series of tubes!

  • Caves (Score:5, Informative)

    by Rei ( 128717 ) on Friday March 20, 2015 @10:50AM (#49301877) Homepage

    Don't we already know that these exist [io9.com]?

    • This article is about the maximum possible stable lava tube dimensions, given the moon's environmental parameters.

    • TFA concludes that really large domes might be possible.

      Not that are any.

      Not that they could be sealed and made habitable.

      Just that in the Moon's gravity they *theoretically* might not collapse.

      • Not that they could be sealed and made habitable.

        Sealing them is pretty straightforward actually, you just use a sprayable plastic to coat to the interior. Combine that with a series of air pressure sensors throughout and a small maintenance crew and you're all set. Settling the moon isn't really a problem from an engineering perspective, the issue is economics. It's expensive to get there, it's expensive to live there and so far there isn't much we want there. The only real things that would make any sense at the moment are A) A military installation

        • I cannot conceive of the amount of energy a mass driver would take. The moon is orbiting at 3,683 km/h, so you would have to slow a projectile by that much to hit the earth, and it would have to be very precisely aimed to hit a spot on the surface of the earth as it would take days to hit the Earth. The moon is a terrible place to put a kinetic weapon, but LEO isn't any better as you need to slow the projectile by 28,080 km/h to be able to hit the Earth, and be able to aim yet again.

          This isn't just a matt

          • Pretty simple to slow down as long as you don't mind burning up part of your projectile during atmospheric braking, meteors do it all the time and the big ones make a nice crater. Earth based weapons are cheaper, the advantage of the Moon based one would be the difficulty in counter-battery fire. Obviously it wouldn't be very useful for moving targets due to the flight time but for anything that is stuck in place (cities, military bases, etc) it would work just fine. Refining your aim prior to real use w

        • Sealing them is pretty straightforward actually, you just use a sprayable plastic to coat to the interior.

          Hmmm, you sound like someone who has actually spent a lot of time installing materials over your head, supported on ropes of uncertain anchorage, or installing the scaffolding truss work to avoid having to trust the rock which you're trying to stabilize. Or rather, you sound like someone who hasn't done exactly that.

          I'm not saying that it's not do-able. But that doesn't mean to say it's "straightforwar

          • I'm not saying that it's not do-able. But that doesn't mean to say it's "straightforward".

            I was suggesting that it didn't require any new scientific discoveries and that our current technology could be adapted to the task. It's an engineering and construction problem certainly but not out of reach.

            • Neither does drilling a hole in the ground involve any new technology principles. Tell that to the widows of the Macondo 11. Or the Piper Alpha 167. Or the North Cormorant 13. Or the Shetland 45. Or the more recent Shetland 4. Or, for that matter, yesterday's Russian 54.

              Moonbase-1 will be built on blood (boiled to a powder) and bones.

              • Moonbase-1 will be built on blood (boiled to a powder) and bones.

                And that makes it different how? Construction has always been dangerous business.

                • Construction has always been dangerous. That doesn't mean that the number of deaths is acceptable.

                  We actually had to give up an hour of our off-shift time last Sunday, after the safety meeting, to go through some corporate "culture building exercise" (something I normally associate with home brewing) about how in the past the death rate was reckoned at about one corpse per million dollars spent, but by the investment of 0.13 million dollars (a leg or so), the guy who constructed the Golden Gate Bridge save

                  • I've done construction, it's dangerous, backbreaking, often uncomfortable, thankless work, which is why even the entry level jobs pay more than serving fries at McDonalds. If we can find ways to make it safer I'm all for it. In the meantime we seem to have gotten seriously off topic.

      • Tubes, not domes - somewhat different mechanism, and radically different shape and size. On Earth the theoretical limit of lava tube length is apparently 30-900km, depending on assumptions - that's one hell of a lot more enclosed area than the width would suggest. And on the moon we have discovered cave-ins 900m across, so that suggests that tubes at least roughly on that scale do exist.

        And if tubes that large can theoretically exist, it seems reasonable to assume that much smaller stable tubes, say only a

  • Say Cheese (Score:5, Funny)

    by ISoldat53 ( 977164 ) on Friday March 20, 2015 @10:51AM (#49301881)
    So the moon is made of Swiss cheese.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Himmy32 ( 650060 )
      Now Ken we all know that the moon is not made of green cheese. But what if it were made of barbeque spare ribs, would you eat it then?

  • I didnt see ay mention of moonquakes. Considering these are a real and verified occurrence and considering the considerable amount of energy they release as has been recorded, any prediction of the structural integrity of lava tubes in the moon that doesnt take moonquakes into account is likely to be wrong.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Any dickhead that predicts these things aren't structurally sounds after having there for billions of years is likely to be wrong.

      • You have it exactly backwards. We don't know that they're there at all. All the study claims is that it's possible for them to exist because gravity alone wouldn't collapse them. GP is right, there are other things that might collapse them. You're also sort of right. IF they exist after all this time, it's pretty darn certain they're structurally sound.

        Do they exist, though? We don't know.

        • It would go along way to explain the hollow moon theory. At least it's more believable.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by Rei ( 128717 )

          Um, yes we do know that they're there. There are plenty of pictures of skylight caveins and entirely collapsed tubes from satellites orbiting the moon. On Mars, too.

          • We have pictures of 5000m wide lava tubes on the moon? Link, please? I never heard of that. Pretty cool if it's true.

            • The link is one of the references in TFA. IIRC, it was reference 3 or 4, but having downloaded, saved, opened and read the paper (abstract really), I see absolutely no reason to deny you that pleasure. Enjoy!

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by zlives ( 2009072 )

      reinforcing living structures would be necessary. but my thought is that the tech we have for building in seismic regions should transfer to moon just as well. Granted we would need more long term data.

    • I didnt see ay mention of moonquakes.

      Did you read the paper? They didn't model any seismic activity, nor did they model any confining stresses. As such, their:

      failure values are slightly conservative (i.e. low in magnitude) in order to compensate for [their] not modeling other stress sources such as seismic shaking from meteorite bombardment.

      The point of the exercise was to theoretically confirm that large lava tubes can exist because:

      Recent in-depth analysis of lunar gravity data from the Gravity Recovery And Interior Laboratory (GRAIL) spacecraft has suggested the possibility of lava tubes on the Moon with diameters in excess of 1 km.

    • Considering these are a real and verified occurrence and considering the considerable amount of energy they release as has been recorded,

      Have you actually looked at the magnitudes of moonquakes? Apart from the sporadic ones caused by impacts, they're not powerful quakes, and they're deep below the surface, which add up to low levels of ground shaking. Which is what you are really concerned with.

      The typical shaking caused by a 5.5 magnitude earthquake (on the moment-magnitude scale, since the Richter scale

  • Wonder if the lunar tubes would be diamond laden like on earth? Finance the building of lunar bases? Or just crash the "diamond economy"?

    • Yeah, a crash. Diamonds aren't really all that rare and can be manufactured. There might be some fashion value in "gemstones from space", if it can be proven that they are lunar in origin by some kind of analysis.

      • Re: (Score:1)

        by Anonymous Coward

        Kimberlites pipes are not hollow; they are filled with rocks and they are usually vertical and very deep (and partially exposed by plate tectonics which does not exist on the moon). This discovery is of horizontal hollow pipes full of nothing, not even air.

    • Re:Diamonds? (Score:4, Informative)

      by Rei ( 128717 ) on Friday March 20, 2015 @11:23AM (#49302189) Homepage

      Very few volcanic pipes are diamond laden on Earth - primarily just kimberlites, which require a special type of volcano feed by very deep magma that's high in volatiles. They're almost all very old. The moon tends to be poor in volatiles and the depth requirements would be far greater to achieve the necessary pressures, at least 1/2 to 2/3rds of the way to the core.

      Still, who bloody knows?

      There's all sorts of gem possibilities on the moon, way too many to list here. They're probably the most valuable export-to-earth lunar resource we could mine at this point in time, as you can imagine what sort of premium the market would put on them even if they're pretty much the same as earth gems (let alone if they're mineral species not found on earth)

      • Actually, there's at least one kimberlite which erupted in the Eocene - up in central Canada, IIRC. Whether it is diamondiferous, and it's relations to the known-diamondiferous ones a little further north, I don't know.

        When I was a student of mantle petrology (as opposed to earning a living grubbing around in the crustal ephemera), we couldn't say "there is no chance of a kimberlite being emplaced somewhere on Earth tomorrow. And I still don't see any particular reason to make such an assertion. And to be

  • This reminds me of one of David Weber's book where the moon is really a giant spaceship with a thin layer of rock over the top to camouflage it. As I recall the original moon was dropped into the sun. Nobody noticed the switch since this happened long before humans were around.

    • 'Dahak' trilogy. An OK read, but a bit frustrating since the story-line was abandoned - huge unresolved plot points.

  • The Moon is like a series of Tubes - If Ted Stevens had been an astronaut.

  • These appear too many times in the article to take the idea seriously.

  • Tell me what we've found not what we might find.

  • I thought it was a collapsed lava tube. The lunar surface is pretty heavily pounded so hollow tubes are fairly unlikely, at least accessible ones.

  • This in the same week that The Clangers make a reappearance on English TV....

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