A “moon ark” hidden inside the moon’s lava tubes could protect the sperm, eggs and seeds of millions of Earth’s species, a group of scientists has suggested.
The ark, or gene bank, would be safely hidden in these lava-carved tunnels and caves more than 3 billion years ago and would be powered by solar panels above. It would hold the cryogenically preserved genetic material of the 6.7 million known species of plants, animals and fungi on Earth, which required at least 250 rocket launches to transport it to the Moon, according to the researchers .
Scientists believe that the effort could protect our planet’s wildlife against both natural and human apocalyptic conditions, such as a supervolcano explosion or nuclear war, and ensure the survival of their genes.
The scientists unveiled their lunar ark plans on Sunday (March 7) at the IEEE Aerospace Conference, held almost this year due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
“This is a strong connection between us and nature,” lead author Jekan Thanga, head of the University of Arizona’s Space and Exploration Robotic (SpaceTREx) lab, told Live Science. “We have a responsibility to protect biodiversity and its conservation.”
Not all the technology needed for this ambitious project is yet to come, but the researchers believe it could be realistically built within the next 30 years, Thanga said. .
There are dangers
The main motivation behind the lunar ark is to create a secure outdoor storage facility for biodiversity.
“I like to use the data simulation,” Thanga said. “It’s like copying your photos and documents from your computer to a separate hard drive, so there’s a backup if something goes wrong. “
So, if an apocalyptic event destroyed the natural world or wiped out most of humanity, there would be an opportunity to “hit a reset button,” Thanga said.
In their presentation, the researchers listed the following as potential life-threatening threats to biodiversity on Earth: Supervolcanic eruption, global nuclear war, asteroid impact, pandemic, acceleration of climate change , global solar storm and global thirst.
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“Both the environment and human civilization are very fragile,” Thanga said. “There are a lot of those difficult situations that could happen.”
Creating a genetic backup to conserve biodiversity is not a new concept. The Svalbard Global Seed Vault, located within the Arctic Circle in Norway, holds genetic samples of plant species from around the world and has already been used to grow some plants. back to the country.
However, that cellar is still in danger of being destroyed by rising sea levels or an asteroid strike.
Only by storing the genetic information elsewhere in the Solar System can we ensure its survival from the dangers of biochemistry on Earth, the researchers said.
Lava tubes
The Moon was the obvious choice for an extraterrestrial ark for one main reason: It is only a four-day journey from Earth, which makes it easier to carry the samples than to carry them. take to Mars. The construction of an ark in orbit around the Earth is also not secure enough due to orbit instability, Thanga said.
However, another advantage of building an ark on the Moon is that it can be safely hidden in lava tubs. These caves and tunnels out beneath the surface were formed during the waxing of the moon, and have remained unbroken ever since. Lava tubes protected the ark from meteor strikes and damaging radiation with DNA. The lava tubes have also been suggested as excellent places to build lunar cities for human civilization on the Moon as well, as previously reported by Live Science.
Moon ark design with solar panels above. (Jekan Thanga)
“If there is no direct blow from a meteor or a nuclear strike, the ark should be fine,” Thanga said. “And as many as 200 lava tubes could fit for the ark.”
The researchers recommend mapping these tubes first using specially designed robots capable of automatically inspecting caves and tunnels. The SphereX robots would hypothesize similar to large “pokeballs” with a dark metallic gray upper half and a bronze lower half, according to Thanga. The SphereX robots would be able to hop around in the low pressure of the moon and map the tubes with cameras and LIDAR – a remote sensing technique that uses light in the form of a crushed laser to measure distances.
As soon as the robots identify a suitable lava tube the construction phase could begin.
Building the foundation
The proposed ark would consist of two main sections above and below ground. The genetic samples would be housed in cryostorage models inside the lava tubes attached to the surface by elevators. On the surface, a series of communications and solar panels would allow the ark to be maintained independently and an aircraft would allow human visitors.
Extended design of the ark shown without lava tube roof. (Jekan Thanga)
The construction of the ark would be a major logical challenge, but Thanga said upcoming Moon missions with NASA and the European Space Agency (ESA) will lay the foundation for construction projects of this nature.
Thanga argues that transporting the samples to the Moon is the most challenging and costly part of building the ark, Based on some “quick, back-envelope calculations, “he said.
These numbers assume that 50 samples of each species would be required to successfully restore sex. However, bringing back each species could bring in up to 500, which would mean a lot more rockets were needed, Thanga said. These numbers also do not include launches required to transport the necessary materials to build the ark in the first place.
“It will cost hundreds of billions of dollars to build the ark and transport samples,” Thanga said. “But this is not entirely without question for international cooperation like the UN”
Extremely cold robots
Nevertheless, one side of the moon ark is out of reach at the moment.
For the samples to be cryogenically preserved, they must be stored at very low temperatures between minus 292 and minus 321 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 180 to minus 196 degrees Celsius). This means that it would be inconvenient to use people to sort and retrieve samples from the cryostorage models. Instead, robots had to do the heavy lifting.
But at such low temperatures, the robots would freeze to the floor by cold welding, where metals melt together under freezing temperatures. The solution, according to the researchers, is quantum levitation. This theoretical solution is basically a supercharged version of magnetism using superconductive materials to fix objects in a magnetic field.
“You can crush objects at a distance, so you can move the robots through levitation,” Thanga said. “It’s like you know, invisible strings or ropes are attached to them.”
Quantum construction is not yet possible, but it will also be needed in the future for other cryogenic projects such as long distance travel, so it is only a matter of time before someone works out how to do it, Thanga said.
The researchers say it is possible to make a 30-year timeline, but if a humanitarian crisis were imminent it could do so much sooner, Thanga said.
“This is a very urgent project that needs to inspire a lot of people to go after it,” Thanga said. “I think it could be achieved within 10 to 15 years. would be needed. “
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This article was originally published by Live Science. Read the original article.