The prospect of living on the moon is getting even more far-fetched by the day. For example, researchers published concerning findings in The Planetary Science Journal using data from NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Camera, finding that the Moon is shrinking and covered in over 10,000 visible faults that trigger moonquakes.

Study author Thomas R. Watters, a scientist emeritus at the Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum, found that our nighttime companion rock is basically shriveling up like an old grape. As its interior cools, the moon’s radius has contracted by about 148 feet over the past 400 to 800 million years. That is a very, very slow rate of contraction, about 0.1 micrometers a year, but the structural consequences are immense for anyone hoping to build a lunar dream home.

The Moon Is Slowly Shrinking, Triggering Thousands of Faults and Moonquakes

The Earth distributes 90 percent of the seismic activity along a neat network of tectonic plate boundaries. The Moon is surrounded by a giant, unbroken shell, so when the interior contracts and stress isn’t released along predictable boundaries, the shell cracks. Moonquakes can pop up anywhere, without warning, meaning you’ll never quite feel confident enough in your real estate selection.

This poses a theoretical threat to lunar colonization, but also a practical, very real threat to NASA’s Artemis missions, which had already identified potential landing spots that were sitting uncomfortably close to active fault zones. A tremor could trigger a landslide or damage mission infrastructure. The study offered a silver lining for anyone hoping to build lunar infrastructure one day: areas with the thickest crust had fewer faults, making them the safest places to set up camp.

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From Earth, the Moon looks like it’s covered in holes, but those are really dents—impact craters from space rocks hitting it over billions of years. The Moon does have actual holes that could be caves and might one day shelter astronauts. NASA has recently approved a new mission that hopes to explore that exact possibility.

According to research from the Planetary Science Institute, NASA’s Payloads and Research Investigations on the Surface of the Moon (PRISM) program selected a mission called GIMLI (named after your favorite surly Lord of the Rings dwarf) to inspect the Marius Hills Pit, a hole in our moon that’s nearly 300 feet across.

It’s believed to be a “skylight,” the collapsed roof of an ancient, massive subterranean lava tube.

A Giant Hole in the Moon Could Lead to a Future Astronaut Hideout

A lot of billionaires with space on their minds dream of building some kind of habitat on the moon, but since the lunar surface is an inhospitable wasteland that’s constantly being bombarded with deadly cosmic radiation and experiences extreme temperature swings ranging from 200 degrees Fahrenheit down to -208 degrees Fahrenheit, that dream is, for now, nearly an impossibility.

But those underground lava tubes might offer a natural, climate-controlled bit of insulation, since Mare Tranquillitatis pit temperatures are known to be a much cozier 63 degrees Fahrenheit, putting it on par with the average annual temperature of lovely Laguna Beach, California, though I don’t think the views on the moon will be quite as beachy.

To make sure the pit opens into an actual cavern, GIMLI’s lander and rover will deploy ground-penetrating radar and seismic probes to send back as much information to Earth as possible. If there is a cool cave system, sound waves and gravitational mapping will reveal its true size. And even if we don’t find a habitable underground lair, possibly already inhabited by moon people, we’ll at least learn a little more about how ancient volcanic eruptions helped form the lunar crust.

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