50 km long cave found on moon by JAXA / Kagayu

[uzn]

Things are getting stranger and stranger. Japanese Space Agency JAXA now anounced that they found several caves on the moon, the biggest being 50 km long. Officially there should be nothing but craters on the moon, they try to explain it as lava tubes. But read for yourself.

Mockup picture by JAXA

50 kilometer long cave found on the moon
Thanks to a now destroyed probe, Japanese researchers have found a cave up to 50 kilometers long on the moon. In such a cave, astronauts could build a sheltered base.
The Japanese space agency JAXA has found a lair on the moon that is believed to be up to 50 kilometers long. As the researchers said, such caves would be of great value not only to science, but also to a possible colonization of the moon. Under the surface of the moon not only rock samples could be found, which are relatively untouched by external influences. Astronauts could build a base there that would be protected from radiation, micrometeorites, and the immense temperature differences. The cave is located in the area of ​​the so-called Marius Hills and has now been found in data from the Selene mission from ground radar aboard the Kaguya probe.
The Selene mission was launched in September 2007 and included the main probe Kaguya and the two subsatellions Ouna and Okina. Originally the mission was to last a year, but Kaguya lasted a bit longer. She slowly approached the surface in 2009 at the end of her mission, and then hit it on schedule on June 10, 2009. The images and videos of the HDTV camera with a resolution of 2.2 megapixels were made available to the public last year.

The Selene Archive:
http://www.darts.isas.jaxa.jp/planet.../index.html.en

Already in 2009 large vertical caves were discovered in different regions of the moon. Later it has been confirmed that these caves extend at least several meters down, explains the JAXA now. In the data of the ground radar LSR (Lunar Radar Sounder) with an operating frequency of 4 to 6 Mhz finally the confirmation for the huge cave was found. This may have been caused by the cooling of the lava on the surface of the moon, the Japan Times quotes the theories. According to the researchers, it could be 3.5 billion years old and several tens of meters wide inside. In the future, the scientists want to search for more caves and analyze them.

by Martin Holland

LRS data close to Marius Hills Hole.


The locations of candidate sites of possible subsurface caves.


The lava tube candidate sites as suggested by the LRS data overlaid on Bouguer gravity map by GRAIL spacecraft data.




here is the JAXA´s scientists own website on the caves:
http://www.isas.jaxa.jp/en/topics/001159.html

for more research:
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/1...7GL074998/full

3-D movies around the Marius Hill Hole by TC
download (low quality):
http://www.kaguya.jaxa.jp/gallery/en...Hole_8Mbps.zip
download (high quality):
http://www.kaguya.jaxa.jp/gallery/en...ole_20Mbps.zip
The area shown in the movie is same as the upper left figure (12.9 to 14.4 degrees north latitude and 55.7 to 57 degrees west longitude, and is 35 x 45 km in size). The left edge is south in its beginning of the movie.
First, we directly approach the Marius Hills Hole (MHH) and circle above it. Then, we fly away from the MHH along a rille (Rille A) towards the east. Next, we change course to the north and fly over the volcanic crater from which lavas flowed to form the rilles. After looking at the northern rille (Rille B), we cross a hilly region that contains lots of volcanic domes. This area, the Marius Hills, was one of the most volcanologically active regions of the Moon. Finally, we head back toward the MHH.
The data was processed by the LISM/TC team.