NASA has picked a plan to see if a big hole on the Moon leads to a huge underground cave. The project, called GIMLI, will use radar, shaking sensors, and gravity readings to look below the surface near the Marius Hill Pit.
The goal is simple: find out whether the pit opens into a lava tube that could shelter future space travelers from radiation and wild temperature swings on the lunar surface. If the cave exists, it might keep traces of the Moon’s volcanic past safe inside.
GIMLI’s Instruments and Partners
GIMLI stands for Geophysical Instruments for Marius Lunar pit Investigation. It is led by Than Putzig, an associate director and senior scientist at the Planetary Science Institute. Honeybee Robotics will build most of the gear, including the active-source seismic system, the gravimeter, and the cameras.
The instruments will ride on a lander and rover supplied through NASA’s Commercial Lunar Payloads Services initiative. PSI’s work will also tie in with the Norwegian Space Agency, which provides the ground-penetrating radar.
Why This Hole Matters
Scientists have spotted signs of caves and lava tubes from orbit, but they have never checked them out up close. The Marius Hill Pit sits in one of the Moon’s most volcanically varied regions, and its opening looks like an entrance to something below.
Putzig said he has wanted to bring active seismic methods back to planetary science for years. “It’s long been a desire of mine to reintroduce intentional active-source seismic methods to planetary science, as it has essentially not been done since the Apollo astronauts conducted the first seismic surveys on the Moon,” he said.
Combining seismic waves with radar and gravity readings should let researchers see what is down there. The cameras will photograph the pit’s walls too, giving a full picture of the site.
What Happens If There Is No Cave
Not finding a cave would still teach scientists something. The mission could answer how the pit itself formed, and studying the rock around it could shed light on the wider region’s volcanic history.
The walls of the pit expose layers of buried lava and dust that normally stay hidden. Looking at those layers could show how lava flowed across and beneath the surface, and whether eruptions happened far apart.
The Team Behind It
PSI’s Director and CEO Amanda Hendrix called the project a mark of what the institute was built to do. “GIMLI represents the type of ambitious planetary science that PSI was built to pursue,” she said. “Than and his team are taking a scientific question we’ve been studying from orbit and have developed a way to investigate it directly on the Moon.”
The GIMLI team includes Co-Investigators from Boise State University, Johns Hopkins University, the Lunar and Planetary Institute, and the University of Oslo. Gareth Morgan, a PSI Senior Scientist and Deputy Principal Investigator, framed the lava tube hunt as a link to Earth.
“Confirming a substantial lava tube would give us an insight into how volcanism operated on the Moon,” Morgan said. “Lava tubes are a common feature of basaltic volcanism on Earth, so identifying them on the Moon means we could use knowledge of such terrestrial caves to better understand lunar history.”
What the Mission Could Find
If GIMLI finds a lava tube, it could confirm that the Moon’s volcanic past left behind structures similar to those found on Earth. That would give scientists a familiar model for understanding how the Moon’s surface took shape.
Even without a cave, the mission could reveal new details about the Moon’s geology. The layers exposed by the pit offer a window into volcanic processes that shaped the surface.
Timeline of the Project
| Step | Detail |
|---|---|
| Selected | NASA chose the GIMLI proposal |
| Provider | CLPS initiative supplies the lander and rover |
| Partner | Honeybee Robotics builds the instruments |
| Data | Radar, seismic sensors, gravity readings, cameras |
| Goal | Confirm whether the pit connects to a lava tube |
What Comes Next
The instruments will travel to the Moon aboard a spacecraft supplied through the CLPS initiative. Once they arrive, Honeybee Robotics will handle operations on the ground.
The results will likely reshape how scientists think about the Moon’s interior. Whether the Marius Hill Pit leads to a cave or not, the data will be new.
Source material: “This mysterious hole on the Moon may open into a giant cave,” ScienceDaily.
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