The Moon May Once Have Had Water and Life

nivek

As Above So Below
New Evidence the Moon May Once Have Had Water and Life

According to a new study, there were two time periods in the history of the Earth’s Moon when it was likely to have had pools of water filled with living microbes that may have traveled there from Earth. Are we still related?

In the study, published in the journal Astrobiology and summarized in a press release, astrobiologists Dirk Schulze-Makuch of Washington State University and Ian Crawford from Birkbeck University of London admit that the Moon would have had to be much different than it is today to support life. Specifically, it would have needed water, an atmosphere and a magnetic field similar to the one Earth has that was capable of deflecting solar radiation. A good source for two of the three conditions is volcanic activity.

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Using data from recent lunar missions which shows water ice on the Moon and evidence of mantle water early in its life, Schulze-Makuch and Crawford used simulations to identify two time periods with favorable conditions for volcanic activity — 4 billion years ago and 3.5 billion years ago. The first period was right after the creation of the Moon, when a much larger Earth collided with another planetary body, creating a cloud of vaporized rock and liquid that eventually became the Moon. That vaporized liquid could have formed both surface water and an atmosphere. About 500,000 years later, the study shows a high level of volcanic activity on the still-young Moon which would have spewed enough water vapor for an atmosphere and ground water.

What about the third condition – the magnetic field? Schulze-Makuch believes the Moon was created with one and lost it over time. Put the conditions together and the Moon was ready for life.
We basically had what we would call habitable conditions,” he said. “Or at least the most basic parameters for that.
Where did it come from? While it’s possible that underwater volcanic activity could have sparked a chemical reaction to create life, Schulze-Makuch points out that there was already life on Earth 3.7 billion years ago – right in between those periods of lunar volcanic activities, and it was “likely” that one of those life-changing asteroids that hit the Earth on a regular basis could have launched life forms — microbes, anaerobic bacteria, and photosynthesizing cyanobacteria — to the then-fertile surface of the Moon where it could breath a sigh of relief along with lunar air.

Is it time to break out the champagne and raise a toast to life on the Moon?
Whether life ever arose on the Moon, or was transported to it from elsewhere, is of course highly speculative and can only be addressed by an aggressive future program of lunar exploration. An important aspect of such an exploration program would be obtaining samples from paleoregolith deposits dating from time of peak mare volcanism to determine if hydrated conditions (or other evidence for habitable conditions, including possible biomarkers) existed at that time.
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In other words, if we want to find out if we have long-lost Moon cousins, it’s time to crank up the lunar exploration programs and send rovers, robots and humans to the Moon for more samples.

Is NASA up for it? Are Musk or Bezos?

Are we?

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Standingstones

Celestial
Have you ever wondered about countries such as China and India that have been making noises about heading to the Moon. I find it telling that the US is strangely silent about other countries about to land there. Perhaps we already have a presence on the Moon.

If you believe the stories about when the Apollo 11 lunar module landed. We were supposedly warned off by a fleet of space ships sitting on the lip of a large lunar crater. After we finished out the few remaining Apollo launches we never went back. It’s too expensive, we were told. This just some food for thought.
 

nivek

As Above So Below
Have you ever wondered about countries such as China and India that have been making noises about heading to the Moon. I find it telling that the US is strangely silent about other countries about to land there. Perhaps we already have a presence on the Moon.

If you believe the stories about when the Apollo 11 lunar module landed. We were supposedly warned off by a fleet of space ships sitting on the lip of a large lunar crater. After we finished out the few remaining Apollo launches we never went back. It’s too expensive, we were told. This just some food for thought.

We did send the LROC, Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Camera, and it did verify some of the lunar landings, even saw footprints still there from the Apollo missions, maybe we had to stay away from the moon for a certain period of time?...

...
 

Sheltie

Fratty and out of touch.
From what I've read, it's hard to imagine the moon ever had any type of life.

The lunar dust is said to be a powdery substance, like very fine ground glass. It could be extremely dangerous for any type of advanced life.

The interior seems to be different from solid planets such as Earth and Mars. There is no solid core and it is inexplicably less dense.
 

Gambeir

Celestial
My advice is to look at the video's compiled by ordinary people using telescopes. We have reached a point where technology which was once the sole province of controlled academia is now in the hands of ordinary people. It is no longer 1970 folks, nor even 1990, it' now 2018 and things have changed dramatically.

I've looked at some of these

This is a good compilation. 7:08 the video moves to cover what looks like an atmosphere with either clouds or dust clouds with objects moving across the surface (flying).
 

Niku120

Honorable
Moon landings all fake dude come on if youre that gullible got some land at the center of the earth for u
 

Gambeir

Celestial
Moon landings all fake dude come on if youre that gullible got some land at the center of the earth for u

Hard to conclude they weren't when you've got people now seemingly seeing entire cities on the lunar surface, along with ARV type machines, and evidently some kind of atmosphere.
 

Castle-Yankee54

Celestial
We did send the LROC, Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Camera, and it did verify some of the lunar landings, even saw footprints still there from the Apollo missions, maybe we had to stay away from the moon for a certain period of time?...

...

I don't think we needed to stay away from the moon after we landed......I personally recall the recession in the 1970s that was a good enough reason to stay away after having landed there.

As for the moon once having life.....I'm not aware of it ever having plate tectonic or active volcanism for an extends period of time for it to develop.
 
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