The Moon may be the closest celestial body to Earth, but it still hides several secrets both on and within its surface. The last time anyone’s ever set food on the lunar surface was back in 1972, after all—thereby necessitating studies on the properties of our neighbor that we only see at night.
Given that we expect to see vast improvements and innovations in space travel this century, it will be important to develop ways of restocking and refueling our spacecraft without bringing them all the way back to Earth each time. This, of course, sits alongside any academic endeavors which aim to fully understand the history and composition of our planet’s cosmic partner, like China’s Chang’e-5 lunar lander.
As a result, it will be important for scientists to understand what materials, if any, can we find on the Moon; figuring these out will help experts plan out future studies and expeditions to the Moon and beyond. And it appears that this is precisely what a team of scientists who published their findings in the Geophysical Research Letters journal just did; they just found hard evidence for “cold traps” on the Moon.
These cold traps can be found in areas of the Moon locked in perpetual darkness, called “permanently shadowed regions.” These regions never see any sunlight, whether by location or circumstance; as such, these areas commonly experience temperatures lower than even those on Pluto. Because of this, any material that gets anywhere near these areas freeze into solid form and stay frozen, becoming “trapped” in these cold areas, hence the name.
In this case, the cold traps were found on the lunar poles. These areas on the Moon were found after eleven (11) years of data obtained from the Diviner Lunar Radiometer Experiment aboard NASA’s flying Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter.
These cold patches are scattered across the lunar poles, and when combined, stretch for a total of 204 sq. km. (78 sq. mi.). The largest of these patches is one hidden in the deepest portions of the Amundsen Crater, which already contains 82 sq. km. (31 sq. mi.) of cold trap area all by itself.
To scientists, finding these cold trap patches on the Moon provides tantalizing opportunities for future space travel, as they may house solid carbon dioxide (CO2); these potential dry ice deposits can then be utilized by future human colonies or settlements on the lunar surface, making trips further out into space a whole lot easier.
In the words of lead author and Planetary Science Institute scientist Norbert Schörghofer: ““My surprise was that [the cold traps were] actually, definitely there. It could have been that we can’t establish their existence, [they might have been] one pixel on a map […] so I think the surprise was that we really found contiguous regions which are cold enough, beyond doubt.”
References
- American Geophysical Union. (2021, November 15). Carbon dioxide cold traps on the moon are confirmed for the first time. EurekAlert! https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/934990
- Schorghofer, N., Williams, J.-P., Martinez-Camacho, J., Paige, D. A., & Siegler, M. A. (2021). Carbon dioxide cold traps on the moon. Geophysical Research Letters, 48(20), e2021GL095533. https://doi.org/10.1029/2021GL095533
