Lava tubes, underground caves created by volcanic activity, could provide protected habitats large enough to house streets on Mars or even towns on the Moon, according to research presented at the European Planetary Science Congress (EPSC) 2017 in Riga.
Article continues below
A further study shows how the next generation of lunar orbiters will be able to use radar to locate these structures under the Moon's surface.
Lava tubes can form in two ways: 'overcrusted' tubes form when low-viscosity lava flows fairly close to the surface, developing a hard crust that thickens to create a roof above the moving lava stream. When the eruptions end, the conduit is drained leaving a tunnel a few metres beneath the surface.
'Inflated' tubes are complex and deep structures that form when lava is injected into existing fissures between layers of rock or cavities from previous flows.
The lava expands and leaves a huge network of connected galleries as it forces its way to the surface. Lava tubes are found in many volcanic areas on Earth, including Lanzarote, Hawaii, Iceland, North Queensland in Australia, Sicily and the Galapagos islands.
Underground networks of tubes can reach up to 65 kilometres. Space missions have also observed chains of collapsed pits and 'skylights' on the Moon and Mars that have been interpreted as evidence of lava tubes.
Recently the NASA GRAIL mission provided detailed gravity data for the Moon that suggested the presence of enormous subsurface voids related to lava tubes below the lunar 'Maria', plains of basalt formed in volcanic eruptions early in the Moon's history.
Now, researchers from the University of Padova and the University of Bologna in Italy have carried out the first systematic comparison of lava tube candidates on the Earth, Moon and Mars, based on high-resolution Digital Terrain Models (DTM) created from data from spacecraft instrumentation.
The work by Pozzobon and colleagues is already being used in the European Space Agency's astronaut training programme. The teams lead a planetary geology training course called PANGAEA for the European Space Agency's astronauts and engineers.
The PANGAEA project has included a field trip and a test campaign in lava tubes in the Canary Island to familiarise the astronauts with geological research they could carry out during future missions to the Moon or Mars, as well as to test technical and operational systems.
In particular, PANGAEA has focused on using laser technologies to characterise the Corona lava tube, an 8-kilometre long tunnel on Lanzarote.
However, analysis of lava tubes with DEMs requires that a collapse or a puncture from a meteorite reveals the presence of the hidden tunnel. Conventional remote sensing instruments cannot detect and characterise the lava tubes, as they cannot acquire measurements beneath the surface.
In a separate talk at EPSC, Leonardo Carrer and colleagues of the University of Trento presented a concept for a radar system specifically designed to detect lava tubes on the Moon from orbit.
The radar probes beneath the lunar surface with low frequency electromagnetic waves and measures the reflected signals.
This radar instrument could determine accurately the physical composition, size and shape of the caves and obtain a global map of their location. ■