Lunar Pits Harbor Comfortable Temperatures

[727Sky]

NASA’s LRO Finds Lunar Pits Harbor Comfortable Temperatures
NASA-funded scientists have discovered shaded locations within pits on the Moon that always hover around a comfortable 63 F (about 17 C) using data from NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) spacecraft and computer modeling.
The pits, and caves to which they may lead, would make thermally stable sites for lunar exploration compared to areas at the Moon’s surface, which heat up to 260 F (about 127 C) during the day and cool to minus 280 F (about minus 173 C) at night. Lunar exploration is part of NASA’s goal to explore and understand the unknown in space, to inspire and benefit humanity.

NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Camera has now imaged the Marius Hills pit three times, each time with very different lighting. The center panel, with the Sun high above, gives scientists a great view of the Marius Hills pit floor. The Marius pit is about 34 meters (about 111 feet) deep and 65 by 90 meters (approximately 213 by 295 feet) wide.
Credits: NASA/GSFC/Arizona State University
Full caption
Pits were first discovered on the Moon in 2009, and since then, scientists have wondered if they led to caves that could be explored or used as shelters. The pits or caves would also offer some protection from cosmic rays, solar radiation and micrometeorites.
“About 16 of the more than 200 pits are probably collapsed lava tubes,” said Tyler Horvath, a doctoral student in planetary science at the University of California, Los Angeles, who led the new research, recently published in the journal Geophysical Research Letters.
“Lunar pits are a fascinating feature on the lunar surface,” said LRO Project Scientist Noah Petro of NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. “Knowing that they create a stable thermal environment helps us paint a picture of these unique lunar features and the prospect of one day exploring them.”
Lava tubes, also found on Earth, form when molten lava flows beneath a field of cooled lava or a crust forms over a river of lava, leaving a long, hollow tunnel. If the ceiling of a solidified lava tube collapses, it opens a pit that can lead into the rest of the cave-like tube.
Two of the most prominent pits have visible overhangs that clearly lead to caves or voids, and there is strong evidence that another’s overhang may also lead to a large cave.
“Humans evolved living in caves, and to caves we might return when we live on the Moon,” said David Paige, a co-author of the paper who leads the Diviner Lunar Radiometer Experiment aboard LRO that made the temperature measurements used in the study.
Horvath processed data from Diviner – a thermal camera – to find out if the temperature within the pits diverged from those on the surface.

This is a spectacular high-Sun view of the Mare Tranquillitatis pit crater revealing boulders on an otherwise smooth floor. This image from LRO's Narrow Angle Camera is 400 meters (1,312 feet) wide, north is up.
Credits: NASA/Goddard/Arizona State University

Focusing on a roughly cylindrical 328-foot (100-meter)–deep depression about the length and width of a football field in an area of the Moon known as the Mare Tranquillitatis, Horvath and his colleagues used computer modeling to analyze the thermal properties of the rock and lunar dust and to chart the pit’s temperatures over time.
The results revealed that temperatures within the permanently shadowed reaches of the pit fluctuate only slightly throughout the lunar day, remaining at around 63 F or 17 C. If a cave extends from the bottom of the pit, as images taken by LRO’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Camera suggest, it too would have this relatively comfortable temperature.
The team, which included UCLA professor of planetary science David Paige and Paul Hayne of the University of Colorado Boulder, believes the shadowing overhang is responsible for the steady temperature, limiting how hot things gets during the day and preventing heat from radiating away at night.
A day on the Moon lasts about 15 Earth days, during which the surface is constantly bombarded by sunlight and is frequently hot enough to boil water. Brutally cold nights also last about 15 Earth days.
The research was funded by NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter project, Extended Mission 4. LRO is managed by NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, for the Science Mission Directorate at NASA Headquarters in Washington. Launched on June 18, 2009, LRO has collected a treasure trove of data with its seven powerful instruments, making an invaluable contribution to our knowledge about the Moon. Diviner was built and developed by the University of California, Los Angeles, and NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California.
NASA is returning to the Moon with commercial and international partners to expand human presence in space and bring back new knowledge and opportunities.
Bill Steigerwald
NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Maryland
william.a.steigerwald@nasa.gov

https://www.nasa.gov/feature/goddard/202...omfortable

Who would have thought ??

[EndtheMadnessNow]

Say what?! That is very amazing on the comfy temps.

Carnegie Mellon team dives into DARPA subterranean challenge

Modularity will be key to robotic exploration of caves, tunnels, underground structures.

A team from Carnegie Mellon University will compete in the systems track of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency Subterranean Challenge, a multi-year robotics competition with a $2 million prize in which robots will autonomously search tunnels, caves and underground structures.

The Carnegie Mellon team, including a key member from Oregon State University, is one of six teams that will receive up to $4.5 million from DARPA to develop the robotic platforms, sensors and software necessary to accomplish these unprecedented underground missions.

As above, so below. Check-out DARPA SubT remote mapping



DARPA seeks compact source for powerful subatomic particles to enable new defense and scientific capabilities

NASA Funds Research for Moon Infrastructure Construction (March 6, 2022)

Researchers from the Colorado School of Mines, Missouri University of Science and Technology and Auburn University will develop construction technology and electronics for long-term colonies on the moon.

To make long-term missions more feasible, researchers led by Gertsch seek to develop electromagnetic and magnetic resource extraction techniques to separate lunar minerals like calcium, aluminum and magnesium needed for manufacturing.

Extreme Electronics

One of the biggest obstacles to space exploration is extreme temperatures that can render various types of technology useless.

“The surface of the moon can reach -415 degrees in specific locations. This is not the best environment for some electronic devices. To keep them warm, one approach is the utilization of heaters, but size and expense create difficulties,” a university spokesman told Government Technology. “To find an alternative to this problem, the proposal is to develop electric devices/components that have the capability of functioning over a wide temperature range, and not rely on warming devices, for future lunar missions.”

Now ponder this R&D project:



RESILIENCE: development of power solutions for increased run-time of electronics used by the IC. Potential UAVs and “leave-behind” electronics that must survive unattended for years under extreme environmental conditions.

Also, there is DOE R&D funding for a nuclear reactor to be housed in a Moon crater or one of those lava tubes.

[FlyingClayDisk]

Just blows my mind people actually get paid, and research gets funded, to study this (almost) irrelevant type of thing.  As if the 'felt-temperature' on the Moon presented some sort of a relevant barrier to Moon exploitation, when it really doesn't in comparison; it's essentially irrelevant.  The 'felt' temperature on the Moon is WAY down the list of things which are barriers/obstacles to space / Moon exploration.  Just goes to show you brilliant how P.T. Barnum really was!

Leaving the thermal dynamics of heating, cooling and thermal transfer aside for a moment (which render the study moot), other, far larger, obstacles face a humanoid Moon-ites.  Things like, oh I dunno, maybe the near-complete LACK OF ATMOSPHERE, extreme exposure to cosmic radiation, and the destructive effects of massive amounts of ultraviolet radiation (among other types of radiation) are but a few of the much larger concerns.  And, while ultraviolet radiation may be mitigated somewhat in the shade of a crater, other types of radiation would still be present.  Furthermore, just the seemingly simple matter of dealing with dust becomes a massive problem on the Moon!  Lunar dust gets into/onto everything, and with no atmosphere to control it, it gets stirred up by the slightest movement.  The abrasive effects of this dust go to work almost immediately on anything like seals and gaskets, optical equipment and virtually anything which moves.  It's a HUGE problem!


(Pictures of some of the Apollo 17 gear stowed in a locker after a Moon excursion.  The Apollo 17 astronauts spent just over 22 hours on the surface during (3) Lunar excursions.

But hey, at least it'll be a balmy 63 degrees F while the Moon-o-nauts lay gasping for air, at least for a few minutes, as they wait in agony while their blood comes to a boil!

<shaking head>

ETA - Here's a great article from '20 which just scratches the surface...https://spacenews.com/dealing-with-dust-...n-dilemma/