The Moon isn’t necessarily the most practical piece of real estate. Not only are there no great schools or neighbourhoods around, you have to endure an onslaught of cancer-causing <keyword id="22427780" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="cosmic-radiation" source="keywords">cosmic radiation</keyword> basically all the time. However, scientists may have found a way around this, and it involves taking a step back to our primitive roots.<br /><br />In the Mare Tranquillitatis, the same ancient lava plain where <keyword id="21252416" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="neil-armstrong" source="keywords">Neil Armstrong</keyword> and Buzz Aldrin first set foot over half a century ago, researchers have identified a substantial underground cave accessible from the surface. This discovery could be a game-changer for establishing a <keyword id="22057502" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="lunar-base" source="keywords">lunar base</keyword>, providing a natural refuge from the <keyword id="22427781" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="moons-extreme-conditions" source="keywords">moon's extreme conditions</keyword>.<br /><h2>A cosy interior</h2>Using radar data from <keyword id="19935155" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="NASA" source="keywords" meta.keywordsubtype="org" meta.entityname="NASA" meta.hostid="261" meta.entityid="NASA">NASA</keyword>’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO), scientists found that the deepest known pit on the moon leads to a vast cave, 45 metres wide and up to 80 metres long — an area equivalent to 14 tennis courts. Situated about 150 metres below the surface, this cave is likely an empty <keyword id="21530002" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="lava-tube" source="keywords">lava tube</keyword>, a remnant of the moon’s volcanic past. These lava tubes could serve as ideal habitats, offering protection from cosmic rays, solar radiation, and micrometeorites.<br />  <div type="Article" hostid="261" msid="111684049" title="The next generation of customised space suits may be moulded around astronauts’ genitalia to filter water from urine!" mstype="2" mssubtype="0"></div>Lunar orbiters had first spotted pits more than a decade ago, many of which are believed to be “skylights” leading to these subterranean lava tubes. These caves offer a stable temperature environment and natural shielding, making them prime candidates for human bases or emergency shelters on the moon.<br /><br />“The main advantage of caves is that they make available the main structural parts of a possible human base without requiring complex construction activities,” explained study author Leonardo Carrer. However, assessing the structural stability of these caves and reinforcing their walls and ceilings will be crucial. Monitoring systems for seismic activity and designated safe areas for astronauts will be essential for ensuring safety.<br /><h2>200 lunar base opportunities!</h2>The cave in Mare Tranquillitatis, surrounded by vertical or overhanging walls and leading to a sloping floor, has piqued researchers’ interest. It may hold clues to the moon’s formation and volcanic history, with potential deposits of <keyword id="22427782" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="water-ice" source="keywords">water ice</keyword> essential for long-term <keyword id="20424859" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="lunar-missions" source="keywords">lunar missions</keyword> and colonisation. At least 200 pits have been identified on the moon, many of which could open into these vast underground networks.<br /><br />Accessing these caves is another challenge, however. Considering that these pits are at least a 100 metres deep, there is a very real chance of loose debris posing risks of avalanches. Despite these challenges, the potential for these caves to support human life on the moon is immense.<br />  <div type="Article" hostid="261" msid="111730212" title="Bengaluru-based Pixxel Space plans to mine asteroids for building settlements in space" mstype="2" mssubtype="0"></div>As space agencies prepare for humans to return to the moon, the exploration and potential habitation of these lunar caves represent a significant step forward. The moon’s once-perilous conditions are now seen through a new lens— one that envisions a future where lunar real estate becomes not just a possibility, but a reality.<br /><br />The findings of this research have been published in <em>Nature Astronomy</em> and can be accessed <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41550-024-02302-y">here</a>.<br />

Newly discovered Moon caves could shelter astronauts as they set up lunar bases!

<ul class="summary-list"><li>Scientists have the most convincing evidence yet of an underground cave <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/moon-missions-why-astronauts-have-not-returned-2018-7">on the moon</a>. </li><li>The large cave could be a safe, warm place for astronauts to work and live.</li></ul><p>In the ongoing effort to establish a permanent base on the moon where humans can live and work, scientists have discovered a possible game changer: a large <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/france-group-spends-40-days-in-cave-with-no-clocks-or-sunlight-2021-4">underground cave</a>.</p><p>For decades, scientists have suspected <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/china-plans-three-moon-missions-after-discovering-new-lunar-mineral-2022-9">the moon</a> may harbor caves below its surface. Now, a new paper from a team of researchers offers the most convincing evidence yet.</p><p>"Lunar caves have <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/vanishing-radio-signals-mystery-objects-in-milky-way-galaxy-center-2022-1">remained a mystery</a> for over 50 years. So it was exciting to be able to finally prove the existence," the authors Leonardo Carrer and Lorenzo Bruzzone of the University of Trento told the <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://apnews.com/article/moon-caves-nasa-astronauts-2dc57751f41a6e24f377c2259e8668ba#">Associated Press</a>.</p><p>The team speculates that, given how they think this cave formed, there could be hundreds more hidden under the lunar surface. Instead of building homes on the moon, we could inhabit the existing <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/mars-hole-whats-inside-possible-alien-life-home-for-astronauts-2024-6">caverns beneath it</a>.</p><p>"Caves like this provide natural shelters against harmful radiation, extremes in temperature, and meteorite bombardment," Wes Patterson, a planetary geologist at the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory and a co-author on the study, told Business Insider via email.</p><p>"While making caves habitable for astronauts would still require bringing materials from Earth, the task would be far easier and more cost-effective than having to build habitats on the surface," he added.</p><h2 id="b239c3e0-e708-4387-89f3-2e42feb7d927">How such a large cave formed on the moon</h2><div type="image" title="The surface of the moon covered in holes, with a line of pits running down the right of the photo." height="1100" width="1100" msid="111794197" hostid="261"></div><p>Judging from the data, the researchers estimate the cave is about 150 feet wide and up to 260 feet long, which is slightly smaller than an American football field with the end zones cut off.</p><p>The cave sits deep within <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/watch-teenager-digs-underground-man-cave-after-fight-with-mom-2021-5">a pit</a> called the Mare Tranquillitatis pit, which most likely formed when a lava tube collapsed. The moon has no active volcanoes today, but billions of years ago, its surface was covered with lava that flowed down and through valleys, carving tubes across the lunar surface.</p><p>Over millennia, some of those tubes became unstable and collapsed, creating pits such as the one the research team studied from radar images taken by NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter. We don't have a clear picture of what the caves look like inside, but <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/hawaii-man-fell-into-lava-tube-died-2019-11">lava tubes</a> such as those in Hawaii can offer some idea.</p><p>NASA's LRO has identified more than 200 of these pits on the moon, suggesting there could be hundreds of underground caves, too. The researchers reported in the paper, which was published Monday in the peer-reviewed journal <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://affiliate.insider.com?h=bb6d000940fa14eb3f866c8bd4b27e186b935a9a9e3791c4417a6d2313e44a7b&amp;postID=66968022c87a0f570985895c&amp;postSlug=scientists-discover-underground-moon-cave-astronauts-could-live-2024-7&amp;site=bi&amp;u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.nature.com%2Farticles%2Fs41550-024-02302-y%3Futm_medium%3Daffiliate%26utm_source%3Dcommission_junction%26utm_campaign%3DCONR_PF018_ECOM_GL_PBOK_ALWYS_DEEPLINK%26utm_content%3Dtextlink%26utm_term%3DPID100024933%26CJEVENT%3De70f4b97443911ef80a303610a82b839">Nature Astronomy</a>, that these caves could offer future astronauts protection against the extreme conditions on the moon's surface.</p><h2 id="eb3ecc6a-7871-4cb5-9860-0b7c7de2ed4d">The pros and cons of living in moon caves</h2><div type="image" title="A pit on the moon with a shadow cast over the bottom of it." height="415" width="415" msid="111794198" hostid="261"></div><p>Because the moon has no atmosphere to help regulate climate, its surface has drastic temperature swings. During the day, the sun's heat bakes the lunar surface to about 250 degrees Fahrenheit, and at night, it can dip below -200 F.</p><p>But in underground caves, the temperature would be both consistent and, as indicated by past research, very comfortable.</p><p>In a <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2022GL099710">2022 study</a> of the same region — Mare Tranquillitatis — a separate team of researchers used computer simulations to suggest that permanently shadowed regions within these lunar pits, and any adjacent caves, would remain at about 63 F.</p><p>"These caves would provide an environment where temperature is much easier to control," Patterson said.</p><p>Reaching these pits and caves is another matter. The cave inside Mare Tranquillitatis is more than 400 feet from the surface near the bottom of a steep slope lined with loose debris.</p><p>Getting up and down that slope would require some technological ingenuity, whether it's jet packs that can fly us in and out, some type of lunar elevator that can shuttle people up and down, or something else.</p><h2 id="0f5166c7-ccb7-47f3-90eb-eaab140eb646">To the moon cave and beyond</h2><div type="image" title="A person in a white spacesuit watering a plant on a mock-up of the moon's surface, with an image of Earth in the background." height="1414" width="2121" msid="111794195" hostid="261"></div><p>Radar technology could help scientists identify even more caves and tubes extending from open pits on the moon's surface. In the future, a spacecraft with a higher-resolution radar could even map the interior of all the pits LRO has identified, the Nature paper says.</p><p>Such a "complete survey" would allow them to assess the best locations for further exploration and future moon bases, the researchers wrote.</p><p>There's also a chance that moon caves harbor water, a crucial resource for any future moon bases.</p><p>Scientists have long known there's frozen water on the moon — just under its surface, in its permanently shadowed craters, and even in lonely H2O molecules sprinkled across the sunlit lunar dirt, less moist than the Sahara Desert.</p><p>Since underground caves are shielded from the merciless vacuum of space and the radiation of the sun, they could have water or ice, Bruzzone told the <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-07-16/cave-discovered-on-the-moon/104102032">Australian Broadcasting Corporation</a>.</p><p>Access to lunar water is key to NASA's plans to establish a permanent base on the moon and, eventually, use it to hopscotch astronauts to Mars. Water wouldn't just be for drinking; it could also be broken down into its elementary components — hydrogen for rocket fuel and oxygen for breathing.</p><p>Bruzzone and his coauthors also noted that caves and lava tubes of different ages might act like fossilized records of the moon's history. Eventually, exploring them up close could help scientists better understand volcanic activity.</p>

Scientists found an underground cave on the moon where astronauts could live and think there may be hundreds more

<ul class="summary-list"><li>Scientists have known about Mars holes for years but an old image has reignited interest. </li><li>These holes could contain evidence of alien life on Mars and be a shelter for future astronauts.</li></ul><p>In case you hadn't heard, there's a hole on <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/why-havent-we-been-to-mars-yet-2024-5">Mars</a> — multiple holes, actually. These holes, or pits, aren't news. Here's a photo of one from 2007:</p><div type="image" title="dark black hole on grey martian surface" height="246" width="491" msid="110917150" hostid="261" sizebytes="24096"></div><p>However, an image taken by the HiRISE camera in 2022 recently resurfaced on the University of Arizona HiRISE's <a target="_blank" href="https://hirise.lpl.arizona.edu/ESP_075251_1775">Picture of the Day</a>, reigniting the conversation around these fascinating features.</p><p>Any excuse to talk about these holes is a good one because they remain largely mysterious and full of promise for <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/elon-musk-plan-colonize-mars-plan-unrealistic-scientists-explain-2023-10">future scientific missions</a>.</p><h2 id="02922bb5-b134-4beb-a59c-caadf4cc0a2f">What are those mysterious holes on Mars?</h2><div type="image" title="side by side images of holes on mars" height="1500" width="3000" msid="110917144" hostid="261" sizebytes="202650"></div><p>The holes, aka pits, are located on the flanks of <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/martian-volcano-unlike-anything-on-earth-2017-2">ancient volcanoes</a> in Mars's Tharsis region, the largest volcanic region on the red planet and home to some of the biggest volcanoes in our solar system.</p><p>As far as scientists can tell, Mars is no longer <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/nasa-close-up-photos-show-volcanoes-erupt-on-jupiters-moon-2024-2">volcanically active</a>. So there's no risk of these giant volcanoes erupting. But there is a possibility that residual underground lava tubes may still exist.</p><p>Scientists think these holes are "skylights," or places where the ground above the lava tubes has caved in and created a gaping hole in the surface, Brandon Johnson, a geophysicist at Purdue University who studies impact craters throughout the solar system, told Business Insider.</p><div type="image" title="Olympus Mons volcano on Mars from the Viking 1 Orbiter. The mosaic was created using images from orbit 735 taken 22 June 1978. Olympus Mons is about 600 km in diameter and the summit caldera is 24" height="947" width="1024" msid="110917143" hostid="261" sizebytes="101872"></div><p>If these lava tubes are anything like Earth's, they could be the perfect place for <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/mars-colony-volcano-hawaii-hi-seas-2016-1">astronauts to hunker down</a> during their stay on Mars.</p><p>"There's more than one of these [pits] on Mars that we've seen," Johnson said. "But they're really interesting because they're places where astronauts might be able to go and be safe from <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/mars-radiation-levels-spacex-nasa-exposure-2018-4">radiation</a>."</p><p>That said, it's unclear how deep these holes go or where they lead. We can only speculate from what we see on other planets, like our own.</p><div type="image" title="An underground lava tube is lit with a yellow lamp and a person stands inside." height="683" width="1024" msid="110917146" hostid="261" sizebytes="175578"></div><p>"On the Earth, these <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/hawaii-man-fell-into-lava-tube-died-2019-11">lava tubes</a> can be large enough to walk around in, but they can also be small or the voids can be discrete or discontinuous," Ross Beyer, a planetary scientist with the SETI Institute, told Business Insider over email. "So these pits we see could open into larger caves, or they could just be isolated pits."</p><p>Beyer added, "There's no way to know what's in them until we explore them in more detail."</p><p>Besides hypothetical <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/elon-musk-says-man-will-go-mars-within-10-years-2023-2">human missions</a> that may, or may not, happen anytime soon, there's a far more important reason to explore these holes further.</p><h2 id="e80dfe2f-3842-4d28-964d-919f40576cf4">Is there life on Mars?</h2><div type="image" title="A hole in the grey surface of the moon with craters all around it." height="800" width="800" msid="110917151" hostid="261" sizebytes="24272"></div><p>These holes could be one of the best places to search for <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/nasa-asks-help-retrieving-perseverance-mars-samples-alien-life-2024-4">evidence of extraterrestrial life</a> on Mars because they may offer a protective, warm sanctuary from the planet's unforgiving surface.</p><p>For example, lava tubes on the moon can be as warm as <a target="_blank" href="https://www.nasa.gov/solar-system/nasas-lro-finds-lunar-pits-harbor-comfortable-temperatures/">63 °F</a>. That's plenty warm enough for life to arise inside. It's unclear if lava tubes on Mars would also be this warm — it's not a stretch to imagine, just a challenge to confirm.</p><p>Right now, the only information scientists know about these holes is what they can see from orbiting cameras in space. When it launched onboard NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter spacecraft in 2005, the <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/nasa-mars-orbiter-best-images-15th-anniversary-2020-8">HiRISE camera</a> was the most powerful telescope to ever leave Earth's orbit and has since transformed our understanding of the red planet, snapping over <a target="_blank" href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0019103523003731">80,000</a> images. But it's still limited.</p><p>"Unfortunately, there is a limit to the 'angle' that we can get from orbit to look 'into' these pits. So sometimes we can see 'walls' and sometimes we can't," Beyer told BI.</p><div type="image" title="Illustration of Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter" height="555" width="740" msid="110917148" hostid="261" sizebytes="20564"></div><p>The best way to explore below the surface would be to physically go inside by dispatching a rover to investigate the pit, Johnson said.</p><p>"There are missions proposed to essentially have a robot go on a line and drop down into one of these skylights and be able to explore what's inside of them," he said.</p><p>But to be clear, just because there could be life in these pits, doesn't mean Mars definitely hosts extraterrestrials.</p><p>"This is a good place to look, but we don't know if there's life on Mars at all," Johnson said.</p><p>In the meantime, to understand these mysterious holes as much as we can, "HiRISE and other Mars-orbiting spacecraft will certainly continue to take images of volcanic areas from orbit to try and characterize them better," Beyer said.</p>

A mysterious hole on Mars could be a jackpot of scientific discoveries, from extraterrestrial life to where astronauts could live

At face value, <keyword id="22033093" type="General" weightage="100" keywordseo="instant-noodles" source="keywords">instant noodles</keyword> and mountains may not seem like they have a ton in common. But if you’re a park staff member in charge of the tallest mountain in <keyword id="19916007" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="South-Korea" source="keywords">South Korea</keyword>, the unlikely conjunction of these things has probably proven as the latest hair-ripping ordeal.<br /><br /><keyword id="22257508" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="Mount-Halla" source="keywords">Mount Halla</keyword>, the highest mountain in South Korea, stands tall and proud on the volcanic paradise of <keyword id="21069831" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="Jeju-Island" source="keywords">Jeju Island</keyword>. At 6,388 feet, this towering peak is a magnet for hikers, who bring along their favourite hiking snack — <keyword id="22033002" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="ramen-noodles" source="keywords">ramen noodles</keyword>. However, a peculiar ritual has emerged: after slurping their noodles, hikers discard the leftover broth on the ground. This has resulted in a surprising ecological conundrum, reports the Smithsonian Magazine.<br /><br />According to the Korea Times’ Jung Da-hyun, visitors are dumping between 26 and 31 gallons of ramen broth daily. The salty liquid is threatening to seep into streams, jeopardising aquatic <keyword id="20112352" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="wildlife" source="keywords">wildlife</keyword>. and the mountain’s endangered plant species. To top it off, the unmistakable scent of ramen is attracting crows and weasels, turning Mount Halla into a veritable buffet for wildlife.<br /><br />In response to this noodle nuisance, the National Park Office of Mount Halla decided that the best course of action was to put their hikers on a diet. Signs posted around the park have advised tourists to cut their noodle and water portions in half. In addition, the park staff have also installed five giant containers where hikers can pour out their leftover broth. These "broth banks" aim to prevent the salty deluge from disrupting the mountain’s delicate ecosystem.<br /><br />Jeju Island, which houses Mount Halla, is a <keyword id="21859378" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="tourist-hotspot" source="keywords">tourist hotspot</keyword> known for its dramatic lava tube caves, stunning waterfalls, rocky formations, and towering cliffs. The island and its geological marvels were designated a <keyword id="19985185" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="UNESCO-World-Heritage-Site" source="keywords">UNESCO World Heritage Site</keyword> in 2007. In 2023, Mount Halla saw an influx of over nine lakh visitors, as per CNN.<br />

How is instant noodles disrupting the ecology of South Korea’s tallest mountain?

Scientists at NASA's <keyword id="12756716" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="Perseverance-Mars-rover-mission" source="Orion">Perseverance Mars rover mission</keyword> have discovered that rocks in the <keyword id="4183780" type="General" weightage="100" keywordseo="jezero" source="Orion">Jezero</keyword> Crater on the Red Planet have interacted with water multiple times over the eons and that some contain organic molecules.<br /><br />The team discovered the organic compounds on the 45 kilometres Jezero, which hosted a big lake and a river delta in the ancient past, using the <keyword id="10842370" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="SHERLOC" source="Orion">SHERLOC</keyword> (Scanning Habitable Environments with Raman and Luminescence for Organics and Chemicals) instrument.<br /><br />They found carbon-containing molecules not only in the interiors of abraded rocks that SHERLOC analysed, but also in the dust on non-abraded rock.<br /><br />However, in a statement the scientist said finding of organics "is not a confirmation that life once existed in Jezero and left telltale signs (biosignatures). There are both biological and non-biological mechanisms that create organics".<br /><br />Curiosity rover has also discovered organics at its landing site within Gale Crater.<br /><br />At the same time, the preservation of organics inside ancient rocks -- regardless of origin -- at both Gale and Jezero Craters does hint that potential biosignatures (signs of life, whether past or present) could be preserved, too, the scientists said.<br /><br />"This is a question that may not be solved until the samples are returned to Earth, but the preservation of organics is very exciting," said Luther Beegle, SHERLOC principal investigator at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California, in the statement.<br /><br />"When these samples are returned to Earth, they will be a source of scientific inquiry and discovery for many years," Beegle added.<br /><br />The findings were presented at the recently-held American Geophysical Union fall science meeting in New Orleans.<br /><br /><keyword id="30862" type="General" weightage="80" keywordseo="perseverance" source="Orion">Perseverance</keyword> has been collecting Martian rock samples in search of ancient microscopic life. Of Perseverance's 43 sample tubes, six have been sealed to date -- four with rock cores, one with Martian atmosphere, and one that contained "witness" material to observe any contamination the rover might have brought from Earth.<br /><br />Mars Sample Return seeks to bring select tubes back to Earth, where generations of scientists will be able to study them with powerful lab equipment far too large to send to Mars.<br /><br />Meanwhile, the scientists also discovered that the Jezero Crater on the Red Planet where the six-wheeled explorer has been driving on since landing in February has organic is likely formed from red-hot magma.<br /><br />Using PIXL instrument, short for <keyword id="12756717" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="planetary-instrument-for-x-ray-lithochemistry" source="Orion">Planetary Instrument for X-ray Lithochemistry</keyword>, scientists had a "good look at the abraded patch of a rock from the area nicknamed 'South Seitah'".<br /><br />The "texture indicates the rock formed when crystals grew and settled in a slowly cooling magma -- for example a thick lava flow, lava lake, or magma chamber", said Ken Farley, Perseverance Project Scientist from California Institute of Technology (Caltech) in Pasadena, in the statement.<br /><br /><strong>SEE ALSO:<br /><a target="_blank" class="c-link c-message_attachment__title_link" href="https://www.businessinsider.in/stock-market/news/constant-fii-selling-since-october-bleeds-indian-markets/articleshow/88339477.cms">Constant FII selling since October bleeds Indian markets; IndusInd Bank, Tata Motors, ONGC top losers</a><br /></strong><a target="_blank" class="c-link c-message_attachment__title_link" href="https://www.businessinsider.in/tech/news/netflix-vs-disney-plus-hotstar-plans-compared/articleshow/88339217.cms"><strong>Netflix vs Disney+ Hotstar: Subscription plans compared</strong></a><br />

NASA's Perseverance rover discovers organic chemicals on Mars

<ul class="summary-list"><li>Scientists want to build an "ark" on the <keyword id="42440" type="PERSON" weightage="60" keywordseo="Moon">moon</keyword>, filled with 6.7 million sperm samples.</li><li>This "Lunar ark" could be a global insurance policy for mankind against natural disasters and other catastrophes.</li><li>The idea is similar to the Svalbard "Doomsday" seed vault in Norway, that stores over a million seed samples from around the world.</li></ul><p>Scientists have suggested that humans could buy into a "modern global insurance policy" by building an "ark" filled with 6.7 million sperm samples - on the moon. </p><p>The ark would involve shooting the sperm and ova samples of 6.7 million species up to the moon via multiple payloads. The samples would then be stored in a vault beneath the surface of the moon, in a "lunar pit," where they could be kept secure.</p><p>According to <a href="https://nypost.com/2021/03/11/scientists-want-to-build-a-sperm-bank-on-the-moon/?utm_campaign=SocialFlow&amp;utm_medium=SocialFlow&amp;utm_source=NYPTwitterPTwitter">a New York Post report</a>, this would be similar, conceptually, to the <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/svalbard-doomsday-seed-vault-photo-tour-2016-11">"Doomsday" seed vault</a> in Svalbard, Norway, which currently holds more than a million crop samples originating from almost every country in the world. </p><p>The team of six researchers from the University of Arizona <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ooWNePIq-3c">presented their idea</a> at the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) Aerospace Conference, where they said their proposal would protect mankind from extinction.</p><p>This lunar ark, the researchers said, could help the earth repopulate if a catastrophic disaster - such as a deadly epidemic, a supervolcanic eruption, a large-scale nuclear war, widespread drought, or an asteroid - were to occur. </p><p>"Earth is naturally a volatile environment," said study author Jekan Thangavelautham in his presentation on the paper, titled  "Lunar Pits and Lava Tubes for a Modern Ark," adding that an Earth-based repository of samples would still leave specimens vulnerable to getting destroyed in a massive disaster. </p><p>While this might seem like a suggestion straight out of <keyword id="41551" type="ENTERTAINMENT" weightage="60" keywordseo="science">science</keyword> fiction, the scientists behind this proposal have calculated that sending the cryogenically-frozen samples of sperm, eggs, spores, and seeds of some 6.7 million species to the relative safety of the moon might well be a feasible operation. </p><p>According to <a href="https://www.iflscience.com/space/scientists-want-to-build-a-doomsday-vault-of-earths-species-on-the-moon-just-in-case/">an IFL Science report</a>, Thangavelautham said in his presentation that the facility could be "filled with samples" in 250 flights to the moon. Building the International Space Station, in comparison, required 40 trips.</p><p>To prevent the samples from freezing or welding together in the sub-zero temperatures beneath the surface of the moon, the scientists also suggest the facility be powered by solar panels. </p><p>IFL Science spoke to Álvaro Díaz-Flores Caminero, a University of Arizona doctoral student leading the thermal analysis for the project, who said that projects like these bring mankind "closer to becoming a space civilization, and to a not-very-distant future where humankind will have bases on the Moon and Mars."</p><p>"Multidisciplinary projects are hard due to their complexity, but I think the same complexity is what makes them beautiful," Caminero said. </p>

Scientists want to send 6.7 million sperm samples to the moon as a 'global insurance policy'

<br /><ul><li>The National Aeronautics and Space Agency (NASA) plans to visit the largest valley on the Moon by hitching a ride on <keyword id="9051291" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="20" keywordseo="intuitive-machines">Intuitive Machines</keyword>’ Nova-C lunar lander.<br /></li><li>The last time NASA tried to land near the region was five decades ago with Apollo 18 — a mission that was subsequently cancelled.<br /></li><li>The mission will be carrying five payloads for NASA and will be testing the Precision Landing and Hazard Avoidance (PLHA) landing system ahead of the Artemis mission.<br /></li></ul>The National Aeronautics and Space Agency’s (NASA) Apollo 18 mission may have been cancelled but it still has plans to visit the largest valley on the Moon, five decades later. This time, it will be hitching a ride onboard a private lunar lander developed by Intuitive Machines called Nova-C.<br /><br /><div type="image" title="lunarlander2_edited" msid="75136397" hostid="261" caption="&amp;lt;p&amp;gt;View of the landing site indicated by a large red dot&amp;lt;/p&amp;gt;"></div><br />“This kind of lunar landing assessment hasn’t been done since the 1972 Apollo mission,” said Steve Altemus, the president and CEO of <a href="https://7c27f7d6-4a0b-4269-aee9-80e85c3db26a.usrfiles.com/ugd/7c27f7_bc896cfc90ca4ae9a0643bfbf5ed214a.pdf">Intuitive Machines</a>.<br /><br />Vallis Schroteri, also known as Schroter’s Valley, is almost the same size as the Grand Canyon on Earth. In addition, it’s surrounded by the largest lunar maria, Ocean Procellarum — the Ocean of Storms — which covers nearly 10% of the lunar surface.<br /><br /><strong>Here’s what makes the Moon’s largest valley so special<br /></strong>Unlike other valleys on the Moon, the Vallis Schroteri is believed to have been formed by a collapsed lava tube that flowed from the Cobra Head crater located on the Aristarchus Plateau. The area could contain material from over one billion years ago, according to the company.<br /><br /><div type="image" title="lunarlander3_edited" msid="75136409" hostid="261" caption="&amp;lt;p&amp;gt;Southeast view across Vallis Schröteri with labels, south is towards Oceanus Procellarum on the top right&amp;lt;/p&amp;gt;"></div><br />Elon Musk’s space company, Space X, will also have a part to play. The Nova-C spacecraft will be launching onboard the Falcon 9 rocket from the NASA Kennedy Space Center’s Pad 39A. This is the same launchpad that sent the Apollo Saturn V into space.<br /><br />“No one in Houston has looked as seriously at the landing site for a funded lunar landing in almost 50 years,” said <a href="https://7c27f7d6-4a0b-4269-aee9-80e85c3db26a.usrfiles.com/ugd/7c27f7_bc896cfc90ca4ae9a0643bfbf5ed214a.pdf">Altemus</a>.<br /><br /><strong>Preparing to land astronauts on the moon after 50 years<br /></strong>Nova C will be carrying five of NASA’s instruments to the Moon along with some commercial cargo to conduct the initial survey. The results from the scientific research and technology demonstrations as a part of NASA’s Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) programme will help the American space agency conduct an initial survey of the site.<br /><br />In addition, it’s also going to help NASA prepare for <a href="https://www.businessinsider.in/science/space/news/humans-have-to-wait-longer-to-land-on-the-moon-again-as-coronavirus-shuts-down-artemis/articleshow/74774712.cms">Artemis</a> — the mission to land astronauts on the lunar surface in 2024 — with Intuitive Machines testing the automated Precision Landing and Hazard Avoidance (PLHA) landing system. The launch is tentatively planned for 11 October 2021, with other launch options available.<br /><br /><strong>See also:<br /><a href="https://www.businessinsider.in/science/space/news/jupiter-saturn-and-mars-ignore-social-distancing-as-they-plan-to-meet-the-moon-this-week/articleshow/75132926.cms">Jupiter, Saturn and Mars ignore social distancing as they plan to meet the Moon this week</a><br /><a href="https://www.businessinsider.in/science/space/news/heres-how-the-gisat-1-will-add-to-indias-space-power/articleshow/74451883.cms">Here's how ISRO's GISAT-1 satellite will add to India's space power</a><br /><a href="https://www.businessinsider.in/science/space/news/coronavirus-lockdown-explore-mars-jupiter-or-leave-the-solar-system-with-nasa/articleshow/75006371.cms">Coronavirus lockdown can make you want to leave the planet — here's how you can explore Mars, Jupiter or even leave the solar system</a></strong><br />

NASA is visiting the largest valley on the Moon five decades after Apollo 18 was originally supposed to land on the Grand Canyon-sized formation

<p></p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"><img src="https://static-ssl.businessinsider.com/image/568acfc8dd0895462c8b4687-2048-1024/hi-seas-mars-colony-construction.jpg" alt="hi seas mars colony construction" data-mce-source="NASA"><p class="source"><span>NASA</span></p></img></div><p></p></div></div><p>HILO, Hawaii - Atop the giant Mauna Loa volcano, the landscape looks eerily similar to the surface of Mars.</p><p>Nothing green grows, and all you can see for miles are chunks of red rock and endless fields of lava tubes. It's easy to imagine you're on another world.</p><p>But it's even easier when you spot the 1,200-square-foot dome that sits near the summit, which looks exactly like the kind of space habitat that astronauts would use as a base camp on the red planet.</p><p>Researchers created this dome to lock volunteers inside and study the least-understood challenge that people will face on a real Mars mission, whether or not <a href="http://www.techinsider.io/elon-musk-mars-colonies-human-survival-2015-10">SpaceX</a> or <a href="http://www.techinsider.io/nasa-journey-to-mars-plan-2015-10">NASA</a> sends them: Total isolation.</p><p></p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_right"><div><div class="image on-image"><img src="https://static-ssl.businessinsider.com/image/5591e4082acae719008b519f-3264-2448/img_3561.jpg" alt="mars dome" data-mce-source="Kelly Dickerson/Business Insider"><p class="source"><span>Kelly Dickerson/Business Insider</span></p></img></div><p></p></div></div>Volunteers are cooped up together&#xa0;for the better part of a year. Back in civilization, scientists monitor and measure their performance and see how well they work together as a team.<p>This ongoing series of studies is called the Hawaii Space Exploration Analog and Simulation (<a href="http://hi-seas.org/">HI-SEAS</a>), and the researchers conducting this research chose Martha Lenio as the commander for the last simulated mission. She and five other crew members <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/people-are-living-in-a-dome-to-get-to-mars-2015-6">finished an eight-month</a> stay inside the dome&#xa0;in 2015.</p><p>During that time, their only contact with the outside world was an email account that linked them to the experiment's mission control. They could only leave the dome wearing a full spacesuit.</p><p>Tech Insider recently traveled to Mauna Loa to meet Lenio and spend <a href="http://www.techinsider.io/martian-colony-habitat-simulation-mauna-loa-hawaii-hi-seas-2015-6">a night on "Mars,"</a> and we chatted with her about her eight-month stay.</p><p>We sat outside on the lava tubes to chat - Lenio had already spent enough time inside.</p>

Here's what it's like to live inside a tiny dome on 'Mars' for 8 months

<p></p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"><img src="https://static-ssl.businessinsider.com/image/5c6c63db2628985d8f166cd6-2400/bobby%20foster%20for%20oceanx-bloombergalucia-orpheus-launch%20.jpg" border="0" alt="Alucia Orpheus underwater drone launch" data-mce-source="Bobby Foster for OceanX/Bloomberg Philanthropies"><p class="source"><span>Bobby Foster for OceanX/Bloomberg Philanthropies</span></p><p class="caption">The Orpheus drone was launched into the waters of the Atlantic Ocean near Cape Cod in September.</p></img></div><p></p></div></div><ul class="summary-list"><li><strong><a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/category/nasa" target="_blank" rel="noopener">NASA</a> and the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) are developing a deep-diving drone called Orpheus. It recently completed its first ocean test.</strong></li><li><strong>The drone, which is about the size of a large backyard barbecue grill, will be used to explore the depths of the oceans like never before by snapping color photos, mapping the sea floor, and discovering new creatures.</strong></li><li><strong>One day, NASA hopes to use similar technology to <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/jupiter-moon-europa-ocean-water-plume-evidence-2018-5" target="_blank" rel="noopener">investigate the oceans of Europa</a>, an icy moon of Jupiter, and search for alien life there.&#xa0;</strong><span style="background-color: #ffff00;"></span></li></ul><p>Diving to the bottom of the ocean is arguably harder than rocketing into space.</p><p>Hundreds of astronauts have left Earth, but you can count the people who've visited the very bottom of the ocean on one hand: <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/submarine-to-visit-deepest-parts-of-the-ocean-in-five-deeps-expedition-2018-10" target="_blank" rel="noopener">James Cameron, Jacques Piccard, and Don Walsh</a>.&#xa0;</p><p>Because of that, we don't know much about what goes on in the deepest parts of the ocean, especially in the hellishly named <a href="https://web.whoi.edu/hades/about-hades/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">hadal zone</a> that's 6,000 to 11,000 meters (3.7-6.8 miles) under the surface. Although 45% of the world's oceans exist in that zone, that part of the planet has been a mystery to us land dwellers.</p><p>Until now.</p><p>Scientists from NASA and Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) have teamed up on a $1.2 million, privately funded effort to research, design, and build a new robot to explore the hadal zone. The group aptly named the new drone Orpheus, after the mythic Greek hero who dove to the depths of hell and serenaded Hades, the king of the underworld. Scientists hope that similarly, this Orpheus will one day find new bottom-dwelling sea creatures and snap photos of deep-sea life.</p><p>"They're almost totally unexplored and it's a very, very inhospitable environment for doing exploration," NASA <a href="https://www-robotics.jpl.nasa.gov/people/John_Leichty/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">robot engineer John Leichty</a>, who helped design and build the Orpheus drone, told Business Insider. "But there's a lot of creatures that live there."</p><p>Diving that deep is hard. Scientists at WHOI thought their Nereus deep-ocean vehicle could get there in 2014, but the remote-operated machine was <a href="http://www.whoi.edu/news-release/Nereus-Lost" target="_blank" rel="noopener">lost some six miles under the sea</a> after just six weeks of exploration. So for this project, engineers from NASA's Jet Propulsion Lab (like Leichty) are lending a hand.</p><p>Their goal is to create a drone submersible so small and so light that they'll one day be able to shoot it into space to explore other oceans. Orpheus is the first step in that direction.</p><p><em><strong>Read More</strong></em>: <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/earth-water-ice-volume-versus-planets-moons-2016-11" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><em>The solar system has at least 8 giant, secret oceans where alien life may exist - here's where and how big they are</em></a></p><p>"It's the great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great grandmother of the vehicle that may go to Europa," WHOI biologist Tim Shank, who leads the <a href="https://hadex.whoi.edu/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Hadex</a>, or hadal zone exploration mission, told Business Insider.</p><p></p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"><img src="https://static-ssl.businessinsider.com/image/5c6c63ef26289859ac250382-1905/ivan%20agerton%20for%20oceanx-bloombergorpheus-molly-curran-waits.jpg" border="0" alt="Orpheus underwater drone test - Molly Curran waits" data-mce-source="Ivan Agerton for OceanX/Bloomberg Philanthropies"><p class="source"><span>Ivan Agerton for OceanX/Bloomberg Philanthropies</span></p><p class="caption">Ocean engineer Molly Curran clasps her hands as she waits for Orpheus to return to the surface.</p></img></div><p></p></div></div><h2>A first test of the drone submarine</h2><p>The Orpheus drone is about the size of a backyard grill and weighs 600 pounds.</p><p>The team completed the first untethered, autonomous test of the new drone in September, just outside Cape Cod Bay. The robot went 176 meters (roughly 577 feet) below the surface, which is still far above the hadal zone, so it's clear Orpheus isn't ready for prime time yet.</p><p>"There's a lot of work that we need to do on improving the autonomy of it to be able to carry out more complex missions," Leichty said. That's especially true when it comes to navigating underwater and making sure "not to run into things," he added.</p><p>Orpheus is equipped with four Go-Pro like cameras (with flashes), both to help the vehicle navigate on its own and to capture the scenery.</p><p>"I guess a good analogy is maybe how with your phone, you can take a panoramic picture," Leichty said. "We're trying to do that same thing, but at the bottom of the ocean."</p><p>OceanX/Bloomberg Philanthropies, one of the funders of the Orpheus project, released new video of the quest on Wednesday:</p><p>&#xa0;</p><p>During the 577-foot-deep test dive, Leichty said, Orpheus's cameras glimpsed some "crab-like" and "tube-shaped" creatures. The team at WHOI also combined 40 images of the sea floor that Orpheus captured to create a 3-D mosaic.&#xa0;</p><p>Communications from Earth's surface can take longer to reach the sea floor than the moon. So the Orpheus drone is completely autonomous - when it decides (on its own) to come up for air, it releases a couple of steel weights that fall to the sea floor, allowing the machine to float up to the surface. Ideally, the drone will do this when it has completed its mission or if it times out.</p><p></p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"><img src="https://static-ssl.businessinsider.com/image/5c6c640d1631a34c27214e95-1500/julian%20race%20for%20oceanx-bloombergorpheus-test-zodiac.jpg" border="0" alt="Orpheus underwater drone test Zodiac" data-mce-source="Julian Race for OceanX/Bloomberg Philanthropies"><p class="source"><span>Julian Race for OceanX/Bloomberg Philanthropies</span></p><p class="caption">The Orpheus drone is completely autonomous. It decides on its own when to resurface.</p></img></div><p></p></div></div><p>"Hopefully it runs and goes, does its mission, and then returns to the surface and tells you where it is to be retrieved," Leichty said.</p><p>If something goes wrong, the weights on the vehicle are designed to rust off within about a day, which would force the orange explorer back to the surface.&#xa0;</p><h2>Searching for new kinds of life on Earth and in space</h2><p>In the hadal zone, where Orpheus will one day travel if all goes to plan, the pressure can reach 16,000 pounds per square inch (psi), which is more than a thousand times the pressure at sea level (14.7 psi).</p><p>That's not a place NASA has tended to care much about in the past - "NASA doesn't really do ocean exploration," Leichty said - but the pressure at the bottom of Earth's oceans happens to be remarkably similar to the pressure on Jupiter's tantalizingly watery moon, Europa.</p><p>"The ocean of Europa - that is thought to be one of the most likely places for life to exist right now, not just maybe in the past some time," Leichty said.</p><p>That makes the Jovian moon a ripe place to search for aliens.</p><p></p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"><img src="https://static-ssl.businessinsider.com/image/5aff3c0c1ae6621a008b4b47-2000/europa-ocean-water-geyser-spray-jet-plume-ice-jupiter-illustration-nasa.jpg" border="0" alt="europa ocean water geyser spray jet plume ice jupiter illustration nasa" style="color: #000000;" data-mce-source="NASA" data-mce-caption="An illustration of salty ocean water spraying from the icy crust of Jupiter's moon Europa."><p class="source"><span>NASA</span></p><p class="caption">An illustration of salty ocean water spraying from the icy crust of Jupiter's moon Europa.</p></img></div><p></p></div></div><p>But before a mission to Europa ever becomes possible, scientists must learn how to recognize and observe forms of life that might thrive at such pressures, so that researchers don't wind up ignoring an unknown sign of life that's right in front of their eyes. The ability to recognize living beings at the bottom of the ocean - the otherworldly animals that thrive inside long, narrow ocean trenches - is one of Shank's biggest concerns.</p><p>"How did trench animals come to be?" Shank wonders. "Did life start in the trenches and then migrate out of the trenches? Or did it migrate into trenches and get caught there and stay there?"</p><h2>A deep-ocean detective</h2><p>Many of the spots on Earth that the Orpheus team wants the drone to explore are near the planet's subduction zones, where <span>areas of the sea floor get </span><a href="https://www.usgs.gov/news/earthword-subduction" target="_blank" rel="noopener">pushed below continental crust</a> and lava flows. <a href="https://ocean.si.edu/ecosystems/deep-sea/submarine-volcanoes-erupting" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Submarine volcanoes</a> are far more common than eruptions on land, and <a href="https://oceanservice.noaa.gov/facts/vents.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">sizzling underwater vents</a> sprout up in the areas where lava churns, creating an environment where life can thrive. Scientists didn't realize these vents even existed <a href="https://oceanservice.noaa.gov/facts/vents.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">until 1977</a>.</p><p>Shank is convinced the team will find never-before-seen microbes in areas near these deep-ocean vents. That could lead to the development of new antibiotics and other drugs, as well as new ways of thinking about the necessary conditions for life.</p><p>Orpheus is designed to be a kind of ocean-floor detective in such areas; it's being outfitted with sensors to detect methane, hydrogen sulfide, and helium, which are all promising ingredients for life.&#xa0;</p><p>"Animals like tube worms and clams and mussels and shrimp and snails love the hydrogen sulfide," Shank said.</p><p>Unlike other underwater vehicles, Orpheus is designed to sit right on the sea floor and sniff these creatures out.&#xa0;</p><p>"Then it will pick up off of the sea floor and, like a grasshopper, land again somewhere else," Shank said.&#xa0;&#xa0;</p><p></p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"><img src="https://static-ssl.businessinsider.com/image/5c6c628f598e234616339ce5-2000/ivan%20agerton%20for%20oceanx-bloombergorpheus-launch-zodiac.jpg" border="0" alt="Orpheus underwater drone test Launch Zodiac" style="color: #000000;" data-mce-source="Ivan Agerton for OceanX/Bloomberg Philanthropies"><p class="source"><span>Ivan Agerton for OceanX/Bloomberg Philanthropies</span></p><p class="caption">Orpheus was launched from OceanX's 56-meter-long Alucia research ship.</p></img></div><p></p></div></div><p>Eventually, the plan is for Orpheus to be joined by a fleet of other grill-sized drones. Shank referred to this as an "armada," and said the troupe of about 20 drones would sniff around the deepest corners of world's oceans for clouds of hydrogen sulfide, then zero in on them, land, and snap photos.&#xa0;</p><p>"These areas are going to be the next thing that will change the way we think about how life can exist on Earth - or any other planetary body," he said.</p><div><iframe width="560" height="315" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/lwp3pCoyYMU" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe></div>    <div class="margin-top">        <h3>NOW WATCH: <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/nasa-uses-water-blast-test-space-launch-system-sls-2018-11">Why NASA blasts half a million gallons of water during rocket launches</a></h3>        <div>            <iframe class="bijwplayerclass" data-player="jwplayer" src="https://content.jwplatform.com/players/QziFEwdL-CEZHWCBG.html" width="100%" height="100%" frameborder="0" scrolling="auto" style="margin:0px;" allowfullscreen=""></iframe><script>function receiveMessage(event){ console.log(event.data.fullscreen); Android.fullscreen(event.data.fullscreen); }window.addEventListener("message", receiveMessage, false);</script>        </div>    </div>

NASA is testing a new submarine that will hunt for undiscovered sea life - and scientists eventually want it to look for aliens on Europa

<p><span style="background-color: #ffff00;"><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_right"><div><div class="image on-image"><img src="https://static-ssl.businessinsider.com/image/5730a46e52bcd022008c1adc-1949-1461/rtr3vsik.jpg" alt="mauna loa hawaii mars" data-mce-source="Reuters" data-link="http://pictures.reuters.com/C.aspx?VP3=SearchResult&amp;VBID=2C0BXZ3QNHTEH&amp;SMLS=1&amp;RW=1558&amp;RH=904#/SearchResult&amp;VBID=2C0BXZ3QNHTEH&amp;SMLS=1&amp;RW=1558&amp;RH=904&amp;POPUPPN=2&amp;POPUPIID=2C0408TUWV6QO" /><p class="source"><span><a href="http://pictures.reuters.com/C.aspx?VP3=SearchResult&amp;VBID=2C0BXZ3QNHTEH&amp;SMLS=1&amp;RW=1558&amp;RH=904#/SearchResult&amp;VBID=2C0BXZ3QNHTEH&amp;SMLS=1&amp;RW=1558&amp;RH=904&amp;POPUPPN=2&amp;POPUPIID=2C0408TUWV6QO">Reuters</a></span></p></div><p></p></div></div></span>SpaceX recently announced plans to send a rocket to Mars as soon as 2018, and to get people there by the 2030s. </p><p>The agency, owned by Elon Musk, is inching toward these goals as they continue to <a href="http://www.spaceflightinsider.com/launch-schedule/" target="_blank">test their reusable Falcon 9 rocket</a> - landing it on progressively more difficult targets from land to sea.</p><p>The launches are incredibly exciting: My heart races every time I watch the rocket liftoff and beats even harder when I watch one touch back down. Understandably, the entire SpaceX team and Elon Musk are similarly filled with anticipation. But what does all this excitement mean for all of us regular people?</p><p>Will future generations one day walk around in Habs like Matt Damon did in "The Martian"?</p><p>The answer is: Maybe. And there's a place on Earth where we can imagine what it would be like. It's the <a href="http://hi-seas.org/" target="_blank">Hawaii Space Exploration Analog Simulation (HI-SEAS)</a> in Mauna Loa, Hawaii. </p><p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"><img src="https://static-ssl.businessinsider.com/image/556c7ccc6da8116b31ecba19-1259-587/screen shot 2015-06-01 at 11.38.29 am.png" alt="hi-seas mars dome" data-mce-source="YouTube/HI-SEAS Media" data-link="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U0uvHTAheqQ" /><p class="source"><span><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U0uvHTAheqQ">YouTube/HI-SEAS Media</a></span></p></div><p></p></div></div></p><p>There sits a 1,200-square-foot dome, a Martian base camp model. Looking at it, it's hard not to imagine yourself on the Red Planet, with an endless view of red rock, lava tubes, and no greenery. Intrepid reporter Kelly Dickerson <a href="http://www.techinsider.io/mars-colony-volcano-hawaii-hi-seas-2016-1">visited the site for Tech Insider</a> in January.</p><p>Six people currently live in the simulation. Their plan is to stay for a year, and they're currently in their ninth month. Dr. Sheyna E. Gifford, one of the six participants in the simulation, keeps a record of her adventures and experiences in the simulation on a <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/sheyna-e-gifford-md-ma-ms/" target="_blank">blog</a> on Huffington Post - I'm an avid reader. She has charted her experience with <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/sheyna-e-gifford-md-ma-ms/dreaming-of-blue-water-and-mars_b_8508042.html" target="_blank">low water levels</a>, <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/sheyna-e-gifford-md-ma-ms/earth-day-on-mars_b_9761452.html" target="_blank">taking 2-minute showers once a week</a>, and even <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/sheyna-e-gifford-md-ma-ms/a-window-into-mars_b_8188066.html" target="_blank">living near open-ended lave tube networks</a>, a geological feature Earth and Mars have in common. </p><p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"><img src="https://static-ssl.businessinsider.com/image/572ce7f5910584e73c8c131a-2345-1173/img_3533-2.jpg" alt="mars dome" data-mce-source="Kelly Dickerson/Business Insider" /><p class="source"><span>Kelly Dickerson/Business Insider</span></p></div><p></p></div></div></p><p>Along with the other participants, Gifford is experiencing life completely separated from the things on Earth you and I take for granted. In their HI-SEAS environment, all of the following conditions are met 24/7:</p><h2>Energy:</h2><p>The sun is the primary source of energy. The 10 kW solar panels charge the battery banks during the day. This means that high energy conservation would be required to survive a cloudy day. There are also two hydrogen fuel cell generators as back-up energy, programmed to kick in incase the battery levels reduce below 10%.</p><p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"><img src="https://static-ssl.businessinsider.com/image/5591ec892acae711008b5235-3264-2448/img_3659.jpg" alt="mars dome" data-mce-source="Kelly Dickerson/Business Insider" /><p class="source"><span>Kelly Dickerson/Business Insider</span></p></div><p></p></div></div></p><h2>Communication:</h2><p>Depending on where the planets are in their orbit, Mars and Earth can be up to 249 million miles apart. Therefore, to recreate an accurate communication experience, there is only limited internet access, with a 20-minute delay in outgoing email, and 40-minute delay for receiving information.</p><p>There's also a team of about 40 volunteers from around the world that engages in one-way communication with the crew 24/7. In addition to reviewing daily reports from the dome, they are equipped to assist with troubleshooting and also emergency medical assistance that can be sent from Hilo, a short drive away from the dome. The latter, I presume, would not be available on Mars.</p><h2><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"><img src="https://static-ssl.businessinsider.com/image/572a497e910584145c8c08f7-2048-944/mail_collector:flickr.jpg" alt="Mauna Loa Hawaii mountain like mars" data-mce-source="mail_collector/flickr" data-link="https://www.flickr.com/photos/mail_collector/17283739472/" /><p class="source"><span><a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/mail_collector/17283739472/">mail_collector/flickr</a></span></p></div><p></p></div></div></h2><h2>Water:</h2><p>We have evidence that frozen water melts during warmer months and <a href="http://www.nasa.gov/press-release/nasa-confirms-evidence-that-liquid-water-flows-on-today-s-mars" target="_blank">intermittently flows on the surface of Mars</a>. But it is definitely not as abundant as it is on our home planet. So, a total of 1,000 gallons is provided for a total of 6 people every two weeks for cooking, cleaning, drinking and showering. The toilets do not flush and inhabitants of the dome do laundry once a month. The tanks are re-filled every 4-5 weeks.</p><p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"><img src="https://static-ssl.businessinsider.com/image/5591b3ececad04df725a0a64-3264-2448/img_3583-2.jpg" alt="mars dome" data-mce-source="Kelly Dickerson/Business Insider" /><p class="source"><span>Kelly Dickerson/Business Insider</span></p></div><p></p></div></div></p><p>If all of these changes in lifestyle, in addition to being cooped up with a group of people for extended periods of time on a planet with a hostile environment, sound like an adventure to you, a HI-SEAS experience might be a good practice session.</p><p>Still, it's tough to make the cut: Martha Lenio, who was part of an 8-month long simulation at the base, told <a href="http://www.techinsider.io/mars-colony-volcano-hawaii-hi-seas-2016-1" target="_blank">Tech Insider</a> that they use a rigorous selection process, including passing tests of high fitness and pitching quality scientific research, to pick their members.</p><p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"><img src="https://static-ssl.businessinsider.com/image/5591e01b371d22a10e8b4f5c-3000-756/img_3630 (1).jpg" alt="mars dome" data-mce-source="Kelly Dickerson/Business Insider" /><p class="source"><span>Kelly Dickerson/Business Insider</span></p></div><p></p></div></div></p><p>Until I make the cut, I'll keep reading Dr. Gifford's blog.</p>    <div class="margin-top">        <h3>NOW WATCH: <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/spacex-monumental-rocket-landing-new-footage-space-falcon-2016-1">Watch never-before-seen footage of SpaceX's monumental rocket landing</a></h3>        <div>            <div>    <script src="http://player.ooyala.com/v3/6e12e8b3387a44daacfb73afba25a76e"></script>    <div class="ooyala-video-player" data-video-autoplay="false" data-video-id="w2MTg1MDE69naQw3DjCVQfJF-48DcVye" data-player-variable="ooyalapopvideo" id="ooyalaplayer_popvideo" style="width:1280px;height:720px"></div>    <script>    if (typeof RunFunctions === 'undefined') { var RunFunctions = []; }     RunFunctions.push(function()    {         var ooyalapopvideo = OO.Player.create('ooyalaplayer_popvideo', 'w2MTg1MDE69naQw3DjCVQfJF-48DcVye',{ autoplay: 'false' });     });    </script>    <noscript><div>Please enable Javascript to watch this video</div></noscript></div>        </div>        <script>(function() { function createPlayer() { OO.ready(function() { RunFunctions.forEach(function(ooyalaFunction) { ooyalaFunction(); }); RunFunctions = [];}); } createPlayer(); }()); </script>    </div>

Elon Musk wants people to live on Mars by 2030 - and this isolated Hawaiian base camp is the closest we've come to that vision yet

<p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"><img src="https://static-ssl.businessinsider.com/image/5ad64e0a14b83f63008b45b4-1743/diamond-meteorite-dead-lost-planet-sample-copyright-epfl-hillary-sanctuary.jpg" border="0" alt="diamond meteorite dead lost planet sample copyright epfl hillary sanctuary" data-mce-source="Copyright 2018 EPFL/Hillary Sanctuary" data-mce-caption="A meteorite that fell to Earth in 2008 contains diamonds forged at the heart of a dead, long-lost planet." data-link="https://actu.epfl.ch/news/meteorite-diamonds-tell-of-a-lost-planet/" /><p class="source"><span><a href="https://actu.epfl.ch/news/meteorite-diamonds-tell-of-a-lost-planet/">Copyright 2018 EPFL/Hillary Sanctuary</a></span></p><p class="caption">A meteorite that fell to Earth in 2008 contains diamonds forged at the heart of a dead, long-lost planet.</p></div><p></p></div></div></p><ul><li><strong>A <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/neocam-mission-not-fully-funded-nasa-2017-1">meteorite</a> that fell to Earth in October 2008 contained scores of small diamonds.</strong></li><li><strong>The <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/category/diamonds">diamonds</a> and impurities found inside them suggest the rock came from inside a planet.</strong></li><li><strong>Scientists think the planet was destroyed 4.5 billion years ago and was the size of Mercury or even <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/category/mars">Mars</a>.</strong></li><li><strong>Asteroid TC<sub>3</sub>, as it's called, may be the first pristine chunk of a "lost" planet ever recovered on Earth.</strong></li></ul><hr /><p><br />After a 4.5-billion-year journey through space, a car-size rock fell to Earth on October 7, 2008. The stony meteorite, called asteroid 2008 TC<sub>3</sub>, plunged through the atmosphere, exploded, and rained its pieces over the Nubian Desert in Africa.</p><p>Meteorite hunters recovered about 50 fragments, which researchers later named the "Almahata Sitta" collection after a nearby train station in Sudan.</p><p>But while many stony meteorites hail from Mars, these were peculiar: They contained a bunch of tiny diamonds.</p><p>Scientists now think those gems and the impurities found inside them could only come from the heart of a Mercury-to-Mars-size planet. This means the rock that fell to Earth nearly a decade ago was part of a "lost" planet formed - and <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/what-can-kill-planet-earth-2016-3">completely destroyed</a> - at the dawn of the solar system.</p><p>'[T]his is the first compelling evidence for such a large body that has since disappeared," wrote the authors of <a href="http://nature.com/articles/doi:10.1038/s41467-018-03808-6" target="_blank" rel="noopener">a new study</a>, published Monday in Nature Communications.</p><p>If true, the rocks could be the first pristine samples, or ureilites, of a dead planetary embryo ever recovered on Earth.</p><h2>Why scientists think they've found part of a destroyed planet</h2><p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_right"><div><div class="image on-image"><img src="https://static-ssl.businessinsider.com/image/5ad65fab817df631008b4619-1943/formation-moon-earth-planets-collision-impact-space-catastrophe-doomsday-shutterstock233196289 small.jpg" border="0" alt="formation moon earth planets collision impact space catastrophe doomsday shutterstock_233196289 small" data-mce-source="Shutterstock" data-mce-caption="Two planets violently collide in space." data-link="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-illustration/earth-destroyed-collision-3d-artwork-illustration-233196289" /><p class="source"><span><a href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-illustration/earth-destroyed-collision-3d-artwork-illustration-233196289">Shutterstock</a></span></p><p class="caption">Two planets violently collide in space.</p></div><p></p></div></div></p><p>The diamonds we're familiar with are formed when sheets of carbon called graphite - the same material in pencil lead - is squeezed to incredible pressures.</p><p>Inside Earth, they're made when carbon-rich magma more than 100 miles below the crust pipes upward and cools in a lava tube. The pressures found about 1 mile deep cause the carbon to crystallize into diamonds. (Though, lately, engineers have been <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/turn-human-ashes-diamonds-carbon-algordanza-2017-7">making diamonds out of dead people</a>.)</p><p>But diamonds can form much deeper inside a planet, and they're rarely pure.</p><p>"Diamonds very often encapsulate and trap minerals and melts present in their formation environment, in the form of inclusions," said the authors of the study, which was led by researchers at the Earth and Planetary <keyword id="41551" type="ENTERTAINMENT" weightage="100" keywordseo="science">Science</keyword> Laboratory in Switzerland. "In terrestrial diamonds, this has allowed to estimate the depth of diamond formation, and to identify the composition and petrology of phases sampled at that depth."</p><p>Using those tools, the researchers said, they could discover the conditions under which the diamonds inside asteroid 2008 TC<sub>3</sub> might have formed.</p><p>The scientists cut up a sample of the rock and analyzed it with a battery of electron-microscope technologies.</p><p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"><img src="https://static-ssl.businessinsider.com/image/5ad64c86817df6f12c8b4571-2400/diamond-meteorite-dead-lost-planet-electron-micrograph-nature-communications-epfl-fn-02.jpg" border="0" alt="diamond meteorite dead lost planet electron micrograph nature communications epfl FN 02" data-mce-source="Farhang Nabiei and Emad Oveisi/EPFL; Nature Communications" data-mce-caption="A microscope's view of a diamond-encrusted meteorite. Diamond is blue, inclusions are yellow, and graphite is gray-black." data-link="http://nature.com/articles/doi:10.1038/s41467-018-03808-6" /><p class="source"><span><a href="http://nature.com/articles/doi:10.1038/s41467-018-03808-6">Farhang Nabiei and Emad Oveisi/EPFL; Nature Communications</a></span></p><p class="caption">A microscope's view of a diamond-encrusted meteorite. Diamond is blue, inclusions are yellow, and graphite is gray-black.</p></div><p></p></div></div></p><p>The images revealed inclusions (impurities) of sulfur, iron, and a mineral called chromite, as well as warping of the diamond crystal and nearby graphite.</p><p>According to the researchers, this means the diamonds formed at the extreme pressure of 20 gigapscals - about 180 times as crushing as the pressure found at the bottom of the Marianas Trench, the deepest point in Earth's oceans. Because of that, they concluded the diamonds likely formed in an environment found only inside rocky planets.</p><p>Specifically, the researchers think a rocky, proto-planet "embryo" at least 4,800 miles wide - which formed roughly 10 million years into the solar system's formation - made the diamonds found in asteroid 2008 TC<sub>3</sub>.</p><p>"Many planetary formation models have predicted that these planetary embryos existed in the first million years of our solar system, and the study offers compelling evidence for their existence," <a href="https://actu.epfl.ch/news/meteorite-diamonds-tell-of-a-lost-planet/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">a press release from the Earth and Planetary Science Laboratory said</a>.</p><p>Such planetary embryos got ejected from the solar system and either became rogue planets or smashed together. Some collisions formed larger worlds, while others created systems of planets and satellites like <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/moon-formation-giant-impact-earth-synestia-2018-2">Earth and its moon</a>.</p><p>The mystery planet doesn't have a name, but the researchers said it was "lost" when it was "destroyed by collisions some 4.5 billion years ago."</p><h2>NASA will soon visit the metal core of a dead world</h2><p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_right"><div><div class="image on-image"><img src="https://static-ssl.businessinsider.com/image/586d5706f10a9a1d008b69ee-1312/undefined" border="0" alt="psyche asteroid nasa discovery mission linda elkins tanton youtube" data-mce-source="Linda Elkins-Tanton/YouTube" data-mce-caption="An artist's rendering of the Psyche spacecraft approaching a giant metal asteroid." data-link="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zTBfNQXSbJo" /><p class="source"><span><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zTBfNQXSbJo">Linda Elkins-Tanton/YouTube</a></span></p><p class="caption">An artist's rendering of the Psyche spacecraft approaching a giant metal asteroid.</p></div><p></p></div></div></p><p>Scientists aren't waiting around for more pieces of dead planets to rain on Earth - they're planning to <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/nasa-new-asteroid-missions-2017-1">fly out and meet one</a>.</p><p>A mission recently selected by NASA, called Psyche, will launch a spacecraft to the metallic core of a Mars-size planet.</p><p>That world is called 16 Psyche, and Jim Green, NASA's chief scientist, has described it as "a very large and rare" asteroid located in Asteroid Belt.</p><p>It's about 155 miles (250 km) wide and thought to be made of <a href="https://uanews.arizona.edu/story/psyche-unexpected-discoveries-metal-world">pure nickel and covered in ice</a>.</p><p>The Psyche probe, set to launch in 2022, will visit the dead planet and analyze its secrets.</p><p>"These missions will help us learn about the infancy of our solar system, a period just 10 million years after the birth of our sun," Green said of Psyche and another mission, Lucy, in <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nYdCU1QQQro">a 2017 NASA video</a>.</p>    <div class="margin-top">        <h3>NOW WATCH: <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/stephen-hawking-warning-space-aliens-seti-2016-12">Stephen Hawking warned us about contacting aliens, but this astronomer says it's 'too late'</a></h3>        <div>            <iframe class="bijwplayerclass" data-player="jwplayer" src="https://content.jwplatform.com/players/ltLwWxe2-CEZHWCBG.html" width="100%" height="100%" frameborder="0" scrolling="auto" style="margin:0px;" allowfullscreen=""></iframe><script>function receiveMessage(event){ console.log(event.data.fullscreen); Android.fullscreen(event.data.fullscreen); }window.addEventListener("message", receiveMessage, false);</script>        </div>    </div>

You Searched For "lava tube" and got 11 results

Newly discovered Moon caves could shelter astronauts as they set up lunar bases!

Ankush Banerjee

Scientists found an underground cave on the moon where astronauts could live and think there may be hundreds more

Jessica Orwig,Morgan McFall-Johnsen

A mysterious hole on Mars could be a jackpot of scientific discoveries, from extraterrestrial life to where astronauts could live

Ellyn Lapointe,Jessica Orwig

How is instant noodles disrupting the ecology of South Korea’s tallest mountain?

Ankush Banerjee

NASA's Perseverance rover discovers organic chemicals on Mars

IANS

Scientists want to send 6.7 million sperm samples to the moon as a 'global insurance policy'

Cheryl Teh

NASA is visiting the largest valley on the Moon five decades after Apollo 18 was originally supposed to land on the Grand Canyon-sized formation

Prabhjote Gill

Here's what it's like to live inside a tiny dome on 'Mars' for 8 months

Kelly Dickerson

NASA is testing a new submarine that will hunt for undiscovered sea life - and scientists eventually want it to look for aliens on Europa

Hilary Brueck

Elon Musk wants people to live on Mars by 2030 - and this isolated Hawaiian base camp is the closest we've come to that vision yet

Ruchika Agarwal

A diamond-encrusted meteorite that fell to Earth may come from a long-lost planet in our solar system

Dave Mosher