200 foot diameter hole found on the Moon's surface, page 1

And here it is ... courtesy of Japanese scientists.

The discovery is important because it suggests that our Moon, far from being the serene body we see today, has had a turbulent ... and volcanic past. The hole is believed to be the exit point for a lava tube, a channel through which lava has made its way to the surface and then has retreated back underground. The lava tube, now empty, is simply left behind as a reminder.

Here's a lava tube on earth, in Hawaii.

This discovery, made by scientists at the Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency, could prove very important for mans colonisation of the Moon, because the lavatubes (if sufficiently large) could be used as a natural radiation shield, in which an underground lunar base could be constructed.

New Scientist

Or it could be an underground UFO launch pad ... who knows ?! Really interesting stuff. A pity Mr Lear wasn't around to give us his opinion ...

Mars also has a large hole. It seems the Moon and Mars have their own Mel's hole.

www.space.com...

reply to post by Larryman

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The Moon's most active volcanic phase would've been perhaps 4.5 billion years ago, shortly after its creation. Those volcanoes may well have looked like those we see on Earth today. But during that period the Moon was still being bombarded by all manner of space junk ... which is why we don't see mountainous volcanoes with craters in the way we're accustomed. Most got blitzed out of existence.

As the volcanic activity reduced, the temperatures & flow rates dropped ... and the lava became little more than a dribble ... it didn't violently erupt, it just gently flowed along. And that's what you see today, the lunar seas are the result of basaltic lava flows, enormous lava filled plains, they're possibly 3.5 billion years old. Interestingly, only 3% of these lava flows are on the far side of the moon, it was "our side" of the moon where all this activity took place. Scientists aren't really sure why, it may be that the lunar crust on our side of the moon was thinner, making it easier for lava to break through, it may have been the gravitational effect of the Earth at that time.

reply to post by Ulala

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Sorry... but I don't buy the supposed coincidence of the missing lunar volcanos were obliterated by meteor impacts - especially on the Earth-facing side, which recieved the least meteor bombardment. And it's also too convienient that the metors would not have also destroyed any distant lava tubes, simply by the resulting moon-quakes from their on-going impacts.

reply to post by Larryman

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I'm all ears ; what do you think these geological structures are ?

reply to post by Ulala

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A Photoshop creation.

reply to post by Larryman

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Volcanoes are a result of volcanic activity, but they are not the source of that activity, that's why there are many places on Earth with volcanic activity or signs of ancient activity but without any volcanoes.

Originally posted by Larryman
reply to post by Ulala

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A Photoshop creation.

How is it then that amateurs can also see sinuous rilles (collapsed lava tubes)? Here's Bode Rille taken by an amateur, a sinuous rille at the bottom of the image:
www.pbase.com...

Originally posted by Ulala
I hear NASA is being advised to bypass the Moon ... bad call in my book

I don't want to go too far off topic, but I will just say that the Moon is still in the plans for NASA. The Augustine report still has the Moon as being apart of NASA's future plans (with Mars being the "ultimate goal"), but the return to the Moon might be delayed, depending on what they choose to do. I had been talking about it in this thread.

Originally posted by VitalOverdose
Have the Japanese taken any pics of any of the Apollo landing sites?

They have taken images of the landing sites, but the Terrain camera has a resolution of 10m/pixel, so it isn't enough to see the any of the leftover Apollo hardware.

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