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The day that Neil Armstrong lay foot on the lunar surface, mankind has started thinking of populating Moon. The condition on the celestial body are not fit for survival but what if -- in the past -- it was suitable to host life?
A recent study published in the journal Astrobiology asserts that conditions on Moon were favourable to support life shortly after the lunar body formed 4 billion years ago, and again during a peak in volcanic activity around 3.5 billion years ago.
Moon was habitable in the past: The two periods
The study suggests that there may have been two early windows of habitability for Moon.
During both periods, planetary scientists think Moon was spewing out large quantities of superheated volatile gases, including water vapour, from its interior.
According to researchers at the Washington State University in US, this outgassing could have formed pools of liquid water on the lunar surface and an atmosphere dense enough to keep it there for millions of years.
"If liquid water and a significant atmosphere were present on the early Moon for long periods of time, we think the lunar surface would have been at least transiently habitable."
Research at Washington State University
The research draws on results from recent space missions and sensitive analyses of lunar rock and soil samples that show that Moon is not as dry as previously thought to be.
In 2009 and 2010, an international team of scientists discovered hundreds of millions of metric tonnes of water ice on the Moon.
There is strong evidence of a large amount of water in the lunar mantle that is thought to have been deposited very early on in Moon's formation, researchers said.
The early Moon is also likely to have been protected by a magnetic field that could have shielded life-forms on the surface from deadly solar winds, they added.
Life on Moon
Life on Moon could have sprung as much as it did on Earth but the more likely scenario is that it would have been brought in by a meteorite, Schulze-Makuch said.
The earliest evidence for life on Earth comes from fossilised cyanobacteria that are between 3.5 and 3.8 billion years old.
During this time, the solar system was dominated by frequent and giant meteorite impacts.
It is possible that meteorites containing simple organisms like cyanobacteria could have been blasted off the surface of the Earth and landed on the Moon.
Schulze-Makuch stated:
"It looks very much like the Moon was habitable at this time. There could have actually been microbes thriving in water pools on the Moon until the surface became dry and dead."
There is a cave on Moon
Last year, Japan's space agency unearthed a space cave on the moon.
The 50 km-long and 100 metre-wide cave is believed to be a lava tube created by volcanic activity which took place about 3.5 billion years ago.
The underground tunnel is located under an area called the Marius hills on Moon.
The moon-cave is also a great place to set up a base on the satellite as it will shelter astronauts from any dangerous radiation and wild temperature swings.
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