HUGE lava tubes thousands of meters high on the Moon.

This article is pretty cool and reminds me of the Apollo mission that "rang the moon like a bell". What if there's actually lost cities or technology down there? They say that the tubes can be up to 5000 meters in hight! That's immense. They also talk about future moon bases using these tubes as shelter. It's an old idea, but this is only the second survey that did some good research. link

Should maybe clarify that the linked article does not claim to have actually FOUND any lava tubes, simply that such structures are theoretically possible.

a reply to: AshOnMyTomatoes

BUZZ KILL!!!! Lol

That's why I said "can be" not "are" but yes I wasn't as clear as I should've been. It does seem very likely with all the density measurements and other studies done though. It'd be like a spaceship if there were a huge energy source for light and propulsion. Very cost effective starship lol

With how cratered the moon is, we would see at least one example of a giant lava tube busted open and exposed. Nobody has seen any.

If the Apollo mission that dropped the used lander module back on the surface and caused the Moon to "Ring like a bell" hit a network of hollow lava tubes it would make sense of that mysterious observation.

S&F I will be watching this discussion.

originally posted by: TinfoilTP
With how cratered the moon is, we would see at least one example of a giant lava tube busted open and exposed. Nobody has seen any.

Hadley Rille, the Apollo 15 site, may be a collapsed lava tube but the crater didn't expose it, it obscured it, see photo. It's way bigger than the lava tubes and channels in Hawaii.

Rilles

Sinuous rilles are probably the most recognizable of small volcanic features on the Moon. Many partially resemble river valleys on the Earth. However, the lunar rilles usually flow away from small pit structures. Also, the lunar samples indicate that the Moon has always been bone dry. Thus, the sinuous rilles probably mark lava channels or collapsed lava tubes that formed during mare volcanism.

This photo shows the Hadley Rille on the southeast edge of Mare Imbrium. It is fairly well known because Apollo 15 landed there (see next image). The rille begins at the curved gash in the bottom left corner, and is clearest in the rectangular, mare-floored valley shown here. In the upper left, it gets much shallower and it slowly fades out of sight in Palus Putredinis. In all, the rille is over 75 miles (120 km) long. It is up to 5000 feet (1500 m) across and is over 950 feet (300 m) deep in places. It formed nearly 3.3 billion years ago . In contrast, lava channels on Hawaii are usually under 6 miles (10 km) long and are only 150 - 300 feet (50-100 m) wide.

This pdf has photos of what look like partially collapsed lava tubes:

Lunar and Martian Lava Tube Exploration

Another clarification: the article talks about lava tubes being 5000 meters wide, not high.

Whether there are actually any gigantic lava tubes underneath the surface is a big question, but the rilles are probably the collapsed and exposed lava tubes.

originally posted by: NiZZiM
This article is pretty cool and reminds me of the Apollo mission that "rang the moon like a bell".

Despite what alien conspiracy nutjobs would have you believe, the moon didn't actually "ring like a bell". For one, there's no atmosphere, therefore no sound...The astronauts on the Apollo missions left seismic sensors on the moon, and when the LM of Apollo XII and the S-IVB stage of Apollo XIII impacted the moon, they caused seismic reverberations, which were measured by the sensors (and, incidentally, are exactly what you would expect to see with a solid body). The 'ringing' refers to seismic 'ringing', not any sort of sound....

Those are just the tubes that are left off after the man in the moons ears got torn off. I have nothing beneficial to add. Couldn't they use ground peircing radar from orbit to check the surface, or would they need moisture present for that to work correctly?

a reply to: NiZZiM


It is thought the Moon "rang like a bell" (it really didn't "ring", but simply continued to show vibration on seismographs for a few hours) after the LEM impacted because the Moon is primarily a more solid chunk of material.

On Earth, similar vibrations due to earthquakes will dampen much more quickly because the Earth is not as solid and monolithic as the Moon. The crust and mantle of the Earth -- due to water infiltration, active geology, and other erosive effects -- is more cracked and broken and more spongy than the Moon. That general sponginess is thought to dampen seismic waves in the Earth, while the more solid rock of the moon allows those waves to continue to propagate for a longer amount of time.

On Earth, vibrations from quakes usually die away in only half a minute. The reason has to do with chemical weathering, Neal explains: "Water weakens stone, expanding the structure of different minerals. When energy propagates across such a compressible structure, it acts like a foam sponge--it deadens the vibrations." Even the biggest earthquakes stop shaking in less than 2 minutes.

The moon, however, is dry, cool and mostly rigid, like a chunk of stone or iron. So moonquakes set it vibrating like a tuning fork. Even if a moonquake isn't intense, "it just keeps going and going," Neal says. And for a lunar habitat, that persistence could be more significant than a moonquake's magnitude.

Source:
Moonquakes

originally posted by: AdmireTheDistance
The astronauts on the Apollo missions left seismic sensors on the moon, and when the LM of Apollo XII and the S-IVB stage of Apollo XIII impacted the moon, they caused seismic reverberations, which were measured by the sensors (and, incidentally, are exactly what you would expect to see with a solid body). The 'ringing' refers to seismic 'ringing', not any sort of sound....

Okay, but solid body is not quite true either when it comes to the Moon. It's likely that it has a solid iron core, but it has a fluid, molten layer outside of that, and thought to have yet another pliable layer outside of that. It's just more solid and dryer that the Earth.
How that can compare exactly to what a strictly, 'Solid body' is doesn't make sense.

a reply to: Arbitrageur

i did not know this I love me some science.

originally posted by: smurfy

originally posted by: AdmireTheDistance
The astronauts on the Apollo missions left seismic sensors on the moon, and when the LM of Apollo XII and the S-IVB stage of Apollo XIII impacted the moon, they caused seismic reverberations, which were measured by the sensors (and, incidentally, are exactly what you would expect to see with a solid body). The 'ringing' refers to seismic 'ringing', not any sort of sound....

Okay, but solid body is not quite true either when it comes to the Moon. It's likely that it has a solid iron core, but it has a fluid, molten layer outside of that, and thought to have yet another pliable layer outside of that. It's just more solid and dryer that the Earth.
How that can compare exactly to what a strictly, 'Solid body' is doesn't make sense.

The Moon formed primarily from the proto-Earth's crust when a Mars-sized body, called Theia, made a "gentle" glancing impact into it. Theia's iron core sank into Earth, leaving very little for the formation of the Moon. Also, the Moon's molten material would have cooled down a long time ago, otherwise there would still be some volcanic activity there. The Moon is indeed a cold, solid rock.

a reply to: smurfy
a reply to: wildespace
This is a case where a picture is worth a thousand words, to see the difference between the moon and the Earth. While the moon does have a small amount of molten material, it's tiny, and the Earth is soft for most of the radius as these illustrations show:

The Moon's Earth-like Core
The title says "earth-like" but to me that's very misleading as it seem completely different than Earth, just look at the thickness of the rigid mantle of the moon:


That's not much like the Earth at all if you ask me where the rigid mantle is a very thin shell on the surface, so thin you can barely even see it in this illustration:

Structure of the Earth


So reading the written descriptions about the moons alleged "earth-like molten core" it's not clear why the moon "rings like a bell" while the Earth doesn't. But if you look at those pictures, it becomes very clear why that happens.