The Moon, long perceived as quiet and motionless, is revealing signs of movement under its surface. Chinese scientists have found that moonquakes are triggering landslides, which could pose risks for future lunar explorers.
What did scientists discover about lunar landslides?
Researchers from Sun Yat-sen University, Fuzhou University, and Shanghai Normal University reported their findings in the National Science Review on 11 September. They compared 562 pairs of before-and-after images from 74 unstable lunar regions and identified 41 new landslides since 2009. While about 30 per cent were linked to fresh impacts, most were caused by moonquakes within the lunar body, according to the South China Morning Post.
How dangerous are moonquakes compared to earthquakes?
Moonquakes differ greatly from earthquakes. While quakes on Earth last seconds or minutes, moonquakes can shake the lunar surface for hours. This prolonged motion could threaten structures, topple equipment, and destabilise launch vehicles on the Moon. Landslides triggered by these events could also endanger astronauts in the future. Lead author Xiao Zhiyong explained that the observed landslides were mostly small, less than one kilometre long and under 100 metres wide.
What does this mean for future lunar missions?
Xiao said the study offers some reassurance since the landslides detected were limited in scale. Yet, he cautioned that disaster assessments based on Earth conditions may not fully apply on the Moon.
Locations around steep slopes could be at higher risk from active movements. These results are likely to inform the choice of safer sites, as China is planning a research station at the lunar south pole by 2035.
Why is the Moon still changing today?
NASA research last year showed that the Moon is slowly shrinking, a process that has been ongoing for hundreds of millions of years. This shrinkage has created faults which cause moonquakes, especially at the south pole, where the NASA Artemis III mission seeks to take astronauts. There is evidence that this continuous shrinking is actively sculpting the surface of the Moon, leaving the Moon very much alive and very much not geologically dead.
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