The Moon was habitable 4 billion years ago: experts

A group of researchers determined that the surface conditions of Luna were sufficient to support simple life forms 4 billion years ago, according to one study published today. in the specialized journal Astrobiology . In addition, scientists concluded that there was another window of habitability some 3,500 million years ago during a spike in volcanic activity of [ Luna . During both periods – showed lead author, Dirk Schulze-Makuch, an astrobiologist at Washington State University -, Luna released large amounts of overheated volatile gases, including steam of water from inside.

This degassing, according to the researchers, could have formed hard liquid water on the lunar surface and an atmosphere dense enough to hold for millions of years. 39; years. "If the liquid water and a significant atmosphere were present in the moon early for long periods of time, we believe that the lunar surface [19659003] would have The works of Schulze-Makuch and Ian Crawford, of the University of London, are based on the results of recent space missions and on the analysis of samples of rocks and lunar soils. prove that Luna is not "as dry" as previously thought

In 2009 and 2010, an international team of scientists discovered hundreds of millions of tons of ice in the Luna .In addition, there is evidence of a large amount of water in the lunar mantle that would have been very early stage and it is also likely that the Earth's satellite was protected at this e period by a magnetic field capable of defending life forms on the surface of "deadly solar winds," according to the authors.

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Schulze-Makuch further explained that the life of Luna could have come largely as she did on Earth, but the The most likely scenario would have been was caused by a meteorite: the most premature evidence of life on Earth comes from fossilized cyanobacteria that have between 3 thousand 500 and 3 thousand 800 million years ago. Meanwhile, the solar system was dominated by giant and frequent meteorite impacts.

"It is possible that meteorites containing simple organisms such as cyanobacteria were ejected from the surface of the Earth. Luna ", scientists have described. Schulze-Makuch acknowledged, however, that the life emerged in Luna or was transported from another location "can only be addressed by a future aggressive program of Lunar exploration .

A promising line of research for any future space mission would be to obtain samples of deposits from the period of greatest volcanic activity to see if they contain In addition, experiments could be conducted in simulated lunar environments on Earth and on the International Space Station to see if micro-organisms can survive in the environmental conditions that would have existed in Luna FM