Not the fault in our stars but certainly stressful faults on our Moon
Let’s study Moonquakes to not let them shake a Moonbase.
Both the United States and China have set ambitious goals to create a long-term habitat on the Moon’s south pole in the 2030s, respectively called the Artemis Basecamp and the International Lunar Research Station (ILRS). Their surface elements comprise habitat modules, oxygen extractors, water ice miners, solar towers, landing pads, and more such infrastructure pieces. The long-term stability of such habitats, and thus astronaut safety, is unintuitively tied to the fact that our Moon after its fiery formation continues to very gradually cool down and contract. This natural process creates, in direct and indirect ways, stress-induced tectonic features on the lunar surface like faults, valleys, and wrinkled ridges that can be hundreds of kilometers long. These geologically active features, combined with tidal forces from Earth, can cause Moonquakes in various ways. Coupled with loose soil and rock fragments, the quakes can in turn induce landslides in areas with slopes such as crater walls or mountains.
The Apollo Passive Seismic Network, a series of seismometers deployed by astronauts during the Apollo missions, detected over a thousand moonquakes over eight years from across hundreds of locations globally…
