This story originally appeared on WIRED Italia and has been translated from Italian.
Their existence had been disputed for decades, but now we can finally we can say for sure: There are caves beneath the surface of the moon. This week, an international research team led by the University of Trento in Italy published a study in Nature Astronomy showing evidence of accessible areas beneath the lunar surface. The discovery could be crucial for the construction of future colonies on the moon.
For more than half a century, astronomers have been theorizing about the existence of a network of caves and tunnels beneath the moon’s surface. In 2009, a team of experts identified a deep hole on the lunar surface, supporting the hypothesis that underground caves may have formed on the moon as a result of lava cooling below the surface. This week’s discovery demonstrates the existence of longer…
