Lunar Forensic Files: Studying Life’s Processes and Origin on the Moon

2 Responses to Lunar Forensic Files: Studying Life’s Processes and Origin on the Moon

1. Warren Platts says:

   February 12, 2014 at 3:56 pm

   On my browser, it looks like the comments are enabled again on the Air & Space blog…

   At any rate, it could be that the astrobiological import of the Moon may be more than just prebiotic organic chemistry. E.g., if the panspermia hypothesis is true, there might even be meteorites preserved on the Moon, particularly within sheltered PSRs that could still contain viable microbes.

   And then again, people have demonstrated that where the thermal gradient is high enough and the regolith is thick enough (10-12 m), temperatures above 0° C are to be expected at the base of the regolith. At an overburden pressure of ~0.5 atm, liquid water would be favored at such temperatures.

   Of course, the interstitial pressures aren’t going to be the same as the overburden pressure in the absence of a sealed “cap rock”; however, as Crotts has pointed out, outgassing H2O molecules diffusing through the regolith could be expected to form an impermeable permafrost that could allow interstitial pressures to build up to the overburden pressure, in which case, actual liquid water droplets would be expected to condense.

   Granted the Moon doesn’t have the sedimentary structures classically associated with subterranean aquifers on Planet Earth; on the other hand, fractured basalt formations on Earth have been known to form aquifers.

   The old astrobiological slogan is “Follow the water”, because life appears to be so resilient and evidently existed on Earth from the time of the earliest known rocks. Thus the idea is we might expect life to be found anywhere in the Solar System where there is liquid water. So why aren’t we following the possibilities of water on the Moon?

   You know, there was a time prior to Apollo that the possibility of life on the Moon, while considered unlikely, was not considered to be impossible–hence the quarantining of the early Apollo astronauts. Yet now, the very idea is deemed to be literally crazy.
2. billgamesh says:

   February 12, 2014 at 9:48 pm

   Lunites! I knew the conspiracy theorists were right all along! They are there- and they have been controlling our minds. I am sure of it. Just kidding.

   Doctor Spudis needs to go on Coast to Coast AM though and explain Lunar Resources (while waffling on the ufo questions like Kaku and Zubrin do). Somebody is going to come up with aliens on the Moon and try and get exposure there- it may as well be a scientist who can do some good. Better that it is about what we can do on the Moon and not sensationalism.

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