Moonquakes and blazing heat: What would life really be like on the Moon?

Excerpt from space.com
 


The idea of building a lunar outpost has long captured people’s

imaginations. But what would it really be like to live on the moon?



Space exploration has long focused on the moon, with Earth’s satellite

the setting for a number of significant missions. A 1959 Soviet

spacecraft photographed the moon’s far side for the first time, and in

1969, NASA landed people on the lunar surface for the first time.

Numerous missions followed, including NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter that beamed home the highest-resolution topographical lunar map to date, covering 98.2 percent of the moon’s surface. 

Altogether, data beamed back from numerous missions suggest that no

place on the moon would be a pleasant place to live, at least compared

with Earth. Lunar days stretch for about 14 Earth days with average

temperatures of 253 degrees Fahrenheit (123 degrees Celsius), while

lunar nights also last 14 Earth days (due to the moon’s rotation) and

maintain a frigid cold of minus 387 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 233

degrees Celsius). 

“About the only place we could build a base that wouldn’t have to deal

with these extremes is, oddly enough, near the lunar poles,” said Rick

Elphic, project scientist for NASA’s LADEE probe,

which studied the moon’s atmosphere and dust environment before

performing a planned crash into the natural satellitein April 2014.

These areas likely store vast amounts of water-ice and enjoy low levels

of light from the sun for several months at a time.

“Instead of the blazing heat of lunar noon, it is a kind of perpetual

balmy sunset, with temperatures around 0 degrees Celsius [32 degrees

Fahrenheit] due to the low angle of the sun,” Elphic added.

Vacations away from pole outposts would offer up sights unlike anything

on Earth. Decorating the moon’s vast lava plains are large impact-borne

“mountains,” the tallest of which is 3.4 miles (5.5 kilometers) high,

about the size of Mount Saint Elias on the border of Alaska and Canada.

“Skylight” holes puncture some of the plains where lava likely drained

into sub-surface caverns — the perfect adventure for lunar spelunkers.

The moon also sports huge craters, such as the 25-mile-wide (40 km)

Aristarchus crater. A view from the rim of Aristarchus would “dwarf the

Grand Canyon and make Meteor Crater in Arizona look like a hole in a

putting green,” Elphic told Space.com via email.

Lunar athletes would not need to check the forecast, however. Because of its very tenuous atmosphere, the moon has no weather.

“Every day is sunny with no chance of rain!” Elphic added. You would,

however, have to look out for so-called space weather, which includes

meteor particles that can be as large as golf balls and highly energetic

particles from solar flares.

Another potential danger would be moonquakes. Seismometers left on the lunar surface during Apollo show that the moon is still seismically active,

and even has rare, hour-long quakes measuring up to 5.5 on the Richter

scale. These quakes would be strong enough to cause structural damage to

buildings.

“So don’t leave Earth for your home on the moon thinking you’ve left seismic activity behind,” Elphic said. “Make sure your lunar house is up to code.”

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Moonquakes and blazing heat: What would life really be like on the Moon?