Moon caves? New discovery offers possible shelter for future explorers

A group of scientists unearthed a rare discovery about the moon: There's at least one cave and it could house humans.

The cave was discovered through radar images from NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, which has been in orbit since 2009, according to a Nature Astronomy study published on Monday.

Scientists told USA TODAY the discovery could lead to prolonged human moon landings in the future.

"This discovery suggests that the MTP is a promising site for a lunar base, as it offers shelter from the harsh surface environment and could support long-term human exploration of the Moon," the scientists wrote in the study referring to the Mare Tranquillitatis pit, which they said is the deepest known pit with a 100-meter radius on the moon. It has a large opening with a variety of walls and a floor that extends underground, the study says.

Scientists Leonardo Carrer and Lorenzo Bruzzone from the University of Trento, in Trento, Italy led the study.

"This discovery is significant because it provides direct evidence for natural shelters that could shield future human explorers from the harsh lunar environment," said Wes Patterson, a planetary geologist at Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory, who is also one of the authors in the study.

What did the scientists discover?

The study credited previous research for discovering more than 200 pits on the moon's surface that were formed by cave-ins of an underground lava tube.

The scientists found the pits on the moon's surface that had walls and a sloping pit that appeared to extend underground. Scientists are unsure if it connects to other pits.

In other studies, Paul Hayne, planetary scientist at the University of Colorado, and his students discovered in 2022 and 2023 that the pits are a comfortable temperature year-round unlike the rest of the moon's surface.

"So going from lunar daytime to lunar nighttime, one would experience something akin to boiling temperatures during the heat of the day, and then 14 days later, freezing cold temperatures, colder than anything on Earth during the winter, nighttime," Hayes said. "So it turns out to be quite difficult to engineer environments or habitats for human astronauts to survive those kinds of temperatures."

The discovery, Hayne said, makes the future of exploration and research on the moon more interesting.

What does this mean for space exploration?

A NASA scientist told USA TODAY this discovery opens a realm where more long-term explorations can be done on the moon by humans.

"We've been collecting the data from the moon now almost every single day for 15 years, and we're still learning new things," said Noah Petro, Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter and Artemis III project scientist. "We're still being surprised by the moon."

The cave discovery is personal for Petro as he's on the team for Artemis III, a human moon landing project eyed for 2026.

"This doesn't change what we want to do on Artemis III, but it sure reminds everyone how much we don't know about the moon and how much more we have left to learn," Petro said.

Contact reporter Krystal Nurse at knurse@USATODAY.com. Follow her on X, formerly Twitter, @KrystalRNurse.