USA and China and gearing up for a renewed focus on the moon. In the next decades, we might see a clash between the two superpowers for the control of our satellite. In fact, the new space race has already begun.
Researchers have uncovered a new entrance to a subterranean cave system on the Moon, located at the base of a 130-meter-deep shaft. The precise extent of the cave system will need to be explored by robots or, eventually, by human missions.The entrance, resembling a massive elevator shaft, measures about 100 meters in diameter at the surface and descends approximately 130 meters into the Moon’s dark basaltic rock, widening as it goes deeper. During the Apollo missions 55 years ago, this feature was unknown, meaning Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin, who landed around 375 kilometers away, were never at risk of falling into it. The same distance applied to the Apollo 17 mission.The shaft was first detected about 15 years ago by the Japanese space probe “Kaguya.” Prior theories had suggested the existence of such subterranean openings, possibly formed by lava cooling underground or by the collapse of lunar tubes known as rilles. However, it was only with…
