The constancy of the moon in the night sky belies a more volatile reality, researchers said in new Nasa-funded research.
As the core of the Earth’s only natural satellite cools, the moon is shrinking, causing it to shrivel. That creates ripples tens of meters high, called thrust faults, across the moon’s surface.
In turn, those thrust faults can be the site of hours-long moonquakes and landslides, which could imperil people and robots as humans continue to explore the moon.
“Our modeling suggests that shallow moonquakes capable of producing strong ground shaking in the south polar region are possible from slip events on existing faults or the formation of new thrust faults,” said Tom Watters of the Smithsonian Institution, lead author of new research published in the Planetary Science Journal.
In particular, researchers focused on the lunar south pole, a region seen as strategically important because scientists believe there may be permanently shadowed regions with deposits of water ice. The lunar south pole has already been identified as the focus of Nasa’s Artemis III crewed moon mission scheduled for September 2026.
The moon’s changing surface was captured by the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter camera, which detected thousands of “relatively small, young thrust faults widely distributed in the lunar crust, and seismic devices left on the moon’s surface by astronauts decades ago”. The new research matched these faults with seismic data.
“The global distribution of young thrust faults, their potential to be active, and the potential to form new thrust faults from ongoing global contraction should be considered when planning the location and stability of permanent outposts on the Moon,” Watters said in a statement published by Nasa.
Watters later told CNN he does not want to “alarm anyone” or “discourage exploration”, but to warn future explorers.
He said: “The moon is not this benign place where nothing is happening.”
