What Is Inside Of The Moon's Mysterious Caves (4K UHD)

Known by the Romans as Luna, Selene by the Greeks and Chang'e by the Chinese, the moon is the second brightest object in the sky after the sun. During a clear night, the moon's ancient scarred surface can be seen, revealing features such as dead volcanoes and violent impact craters. But if you could explore the moon's grey, desolate landscape, you would also come across large, dark, mysterious holes scattered across its surface. In some cases, these unexplored entrances might lead to vast underground cave systems, and so far more than 200 of them have been discovered by NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter. These mysterious holes can normally be located within large craters, ranging in size from about 5 meters to more than 900 meters in diameter, and many of them may well be entrances to what are called Lunar Lava Tubes. Lava tubes are also common here on Earth, and are formed wherever there has been volcanic activity. As lava flows from a volcano, the surface can cool, forming a hardened crust that contains the lava flow beneath, like an underground river of molten rock. Then if the conditions are right, the lava empties, leaving a hollow tube-like void below the surface. Eventually, patches of the tube ceiling might collapse, creating a circular hole that is called a skylight, and these are the holes that have been discovered scattered across the lunar landscape. Although the moon's surface is now a grey, dead environment, 3-4 billion years ago, it would have looked very different. The large, dark patches that are visible on the moon are called Lunar Maria, which is Latin for seas, and are obviously not vast bodies of water, but instead ancient plains of solidified lava. Along the boundaries between these darkened areas and the lunar highlands are thought to be enormous subsurface lava tubes, that could potentially one day be used as enclosures for future human habitats. The cave systems would offer shielding from dangerous cosmic radiation, protection from micrometeorite bombardment, but also an environment for human-friendly temperatures. On the moon, the temperature can be extreme, from below minus 150 degrees Celsius at night, to above 100 degrees Celsius during the day. But building a lunar base under just 40 meters or more of basalt rock could mean a stable temperature of just minus 20 degrees Celsius. Although a lunar base on the moon may be something for future human generations to experience, with our current technology, we may still be able to see what is inside of these mysterious cave entrances. A NASA mission that has been nicknamed Moon Diver has been proposed that will send an extreme terrain rover into one of the several deep pits, grappling down the wall to expose the history of the lunar surface, revealing the moon's volcanic past, but also illuminating a potential future human habitat. I really hope you enjoyed this video, if you did then please hit the like button and subscribe if you haven't already. If you want to watch some more videos then head on over to my channel, there's loads to choose from. Thank you so much for watching and I'll see you next time.