http://www.lpi.usra.edu/publications/slidesets/hawaiivolcanoes/slidespages/slide_11.html wrote:
Marius Hills, Moon
<<Although most lunar volcanism produced the broad lava flows that infill the lunar maria, in a few places, such as the Marius Hills (14°N, 56°W), it is possible to find volcanic domes. In this scene we can see several lunar domes. Some of these domes are quite smooth and low, while others are more rugged and heavily cratered. Two large sinuous rilles similar to Hadley Rille can also be seen cross-cutting a mare ridge.>>
http://www.cnn.com/2010/TECH/space/01/01/moon.lava.hole/ wrote:
Moon hole might be suitable for colony
January 1, 2010 1:03 p.m. EST
Marius Hills Hole
(CNN) -- <<Building a home near a moon crater or a lunar sea may sound nice, but moon colonists might have a much better chance of survival if they just lived in a hole. That's the message sent by an international team of scientists who say they've discovered a protected lunar "lava tube" -- a deep, giant hole -- that might be well suited for a moon colony or a lunar base.
The vertical hole, in the volcanic Marius Hills region on the moon's near side, is 213 feet wide and is estimated to be more than 260 feet deep, according to findings published in Geophysical Research Letters, a journal of the American Geophysical Union. More important, the scientists say, the hole is protected from the moon's harsh temperatures and meteorite strikes by a thin sheet of lava. That makes the tube a good candidate for further exploration or possible inhabitation, the article says.
"Lunar lava tubes are a potentially important location for a future lunar base, whether for local exploration and development, or as an outpost to serve exploration beyond the Moon," writes the team, led by Junichi Haruyama, a senior researcher with the Japanese space agency JAXA. "Any intact lava tube could serve as a shelter from the severe environment of the lunar surface, with its meteorite impacts, high-energy UV radiation and energetic particles, and extreme diurnal temperature variations."
Lava tubes have previously been discovered on the moon, but the scientists say the new hole is notable because of its lava shield and because it does not appear to be prone to collapse. Lave tubes exist on Earth and also have been found on Mars. The cylinder-shaped caverns can be carved out by lava flows, volcanic eruptions, seismic activity or ground collapse resulting from meteoroid strikes.
The scientists used high-resolution images from a Japanese moon orbiter called SELENE to discover this lunar lava tube. The findings were published November 12, but they grabbed the attention of the public this week.>>
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_First_Men_in_the_Moon wrote:
<<The First Men in the Moon is a 1901 scientific romance novel by the British author H. G. Wells. The novel tells the story of a journey to the moon undertaken by the two protagonists, the impoverished businessman Mr Bedford and the brilliant but eccentric scientist Dr. Cavor.
At the Moon, the two men at first discover a desolate landscape, but as the sun rises, the thick atmosphere of the Moon, frozen out overnight, begins to melt and vaporize. They are captured by the insect-like Moon men (referred to as "Selenites"), who have formed a relatively advanced society underground. After some time in captivity, Bedford and Cavor manage to flee. Bedford finds his way back to the spaceship and returns to Earth while Cavor becomes injured and is unable to escape recapture by the Selenites.
Back in Britain, Bedford undertakes to publish the details of the story, including some additional material from Cavor received through one-way radio transmission from the Moon. Bedford learns of Cavor's meeting with the "Grand Lunar", who is the ultimate ruler of the Selenites and the Moon. At this meeting, Cavor inadvertently portrays humanity as predatory, delighting in war, and with little redeeming value. In response, the Grand Lunar decides to cut off all contact with the Earth. Cavor's transmissions end in mid-sentence...>>
http://news.discovery.com/space/moon-lunar-lava-skylight.html wrote:
Living in Lunar Lava Tubes
By Ian O'Neill | Tue Oct 27, 2009 12:28 PM ET
<<One of the key questions when we eventually return to the Moon will be: where are we going to live? Perhaps one solution has just presented itself in the form of a hole in the lunar surface, possibly leading to a hollow lava tube. This natural formation is known as a "skylight" and up until now little was known about where they are located and how many there are. A Japanese team headed by Junichi Haruyama has analyzed data from the JAXA Kaguya mission to find these holes in the ground, and after two years of searching, they've found one in the Marius Hills region of the Earth-facing side of the Moon. The skylight is approximately 60 meters wide and it provides a tantalizing glimpse into what could be a future target for manned lunar exploration.
Carolyn van der Bogert, a co-investigator from University of Münster in Germany,
has kindly taken the time to answer a few questions from Discovery News:
Ian O'Neill: How long have lunar missions been searching for lava tube "skylights"?[/color]
Carolyn van der Bogert: The possibility of using lava tubes as shelters was first proposed, to my knowledge, in 1985 by Fred Hörz in a NASA report about lunar bases. Besides outlining the advantages to using a natural shelter as a base, Hörz argues that there are probably a lot of lava tubes on the Moon, because they are thought to be related to sinuous rilles. Sinuous rilles are thought to form in two ways: (1) an open lava channel that thermally erodes into the lunar surface, or (2) subsurface lava tubes that eventually collapse. There were images of collapsed lava tubes that were discussed in the mid to late 1970's as evidence for volcanic activity and sinuous rille formation on the Moon.[/color]
Ian: The SELENE/Kaguya mission has discovered the first skylight. Will you and your JAXA colleagues be continuing to search for more skylights? How many more do you expect to find?
Carolyn: The search for this first skylight covered one of the most likely regions where they might be found: Marius Hills. A 500 square kilometer (200 square mile) area was searched, and this one skylight was found. This indicates that skylights exist, but are probably rare. However, we would be very surprised if there are not skylights in other similar volcanic provinces. We are certainly looking for more skylights.
Ian: What are your plans for the future of the Marius Hills observations? Will your results be used by space agencies investigating potential habitats for future space settlers?
Carolyn: The highest resolution images acquired by the Kaguya Terrain Camera were 6 meters/pixel, whereas the LROC-NAC images will have a resolution of 0.5 meters/pixel. It may also be possible to make some oblique observations as well. One of the requirements for the LROC mission is to supply NASA with data for evaluation of Constellation Program landing sites. Information, like the locations of potentially useful lava tubes, will be included in this information and used to select Constellation landing and outpost sites.
Ian: Is there any indication to suggest the Marius Hills skylight could access an underground network of tunnels?
Carolyn: It is hard to say whether the Marius Hills Hole might access an underground network of tunnels. It is a possibility, because we know that lava tubes on Earth can be many kilometers long. In the paper, using geometry, we calculated that the tube width might be on the order of 370 meters, but it could be anywhere from meters to kilometers long. Remote observations cannot answer this question for us -- it's like we're trying to see an entire room by looking through a keyhole. Ground-based exploration could answer this question. For example, Haruyama and Japanese colleagues, including Hideaki Miyamoto (also a co-author), have tested whether ground penetrating radar (GPR) might be useful in detecting intact sub-surface lava tubes. They tested their technique at Mt. Fuji, and were successful. It would certainly be interesting to do a GPR study in any region of the Moon where lava tubes might be present!
Ian: Personally, what would you expect the mission profile of a lunar mission would look like if we used natural shelter (such as lava tubes) to protect ourselves from radiation? Do you think this would be a cheaper alternative than building surface habitats?
Carolyn: Lava tubes would not only protect us from radiation, but also from meteoroid impacts and the extreme temperature changes over the lunar day. Near the equator, the lunar night is very cold (about -150 °C), and the lunar day, it is very hot (about 110 °C). A lava tube has a constant temperature, about -20 °C -- just like caves on the Earth have very even temperatures. It is important that the costs of accessing the geological shelter not exceed the costs of a surface shelter. There is a lot of discussion about whether it would be easy to access a lava tube from a skylight -- there would need to be some sort of elevator to carry people and materials to the floor.>>
