Science Fiction
Dictionary
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z
 |
Is This A 'Skylight' Leading To A Lunar Cave?
A deep hole has been found in the Moon's surface; Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency scientists believe it may be an opening into a vast underground tunnel.
Their existence on the moon is hinted at based on observations of sinuous rilles – long, winding depressions carved into the lunar surface by the flow of lava. Some sections of the rilles have collapsed, suggesting that hollow lava tubes hide beneath at least some of the rilles.
The moon seems to possess long, winding tunnels called lava tubes that are similar to structures seen on Earth. They are created when the top of a stream of molten rock solidifies and the lava inside drains away, leaving a hollow tube of rock.
(Via Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency )
The team found the first candidate skylight in a volcanic area on the moon's near side called Marius Hills. "This is the first time that anybody's actually identified a skylight in a possible lava tube" on the moon, van der Bogert, who helped analyse the feature, told New Scientist.The hole measures 65 metres across, and based on images taken at a variety of sun angles, the the hole is thought to extend down at least 80 metres. It sits in the middle of a rille, suggesting the hole leads into a lava tube as wide as 370 metres across.
Robert Heinlein thought that lunar caves would have multiple purposes; you could store air in them and use them for recreation. One of the largest was Bats' Cave from his 1957 novel The Menace From Earth which got its name from the bat wings called "Storer-Gulls wings" that you could actually flap your arms and fly with:
Most of the stuff written about Bats' Cave gives a wrong impression. It's the air storage tank for the city, just like all the colonies have - the place where the scavenger pumps, deep down, deliver the air until it's needed. We just happen to be lucky enough to have one big enough to fly in. But it never was built, or anything like that; it's just a big volcanic bubble, two miles across, and if it had broken through, way back when, it would have been a crater.
John Varley wrote about excavated caves called lunar disneylands in his 1976 novel called The Phantom of Kansas.
"The Kansas disneyland was one of the newer ones, and one of the largest. It is a hollowed-out cylinder twenty kilometers beneath Clavius. It measures two hundred and fifty kilometers in diameter and is five kilometers high. The curvature of the floor is consistent with Old Earth so the horizon is terrifyingly far away. Only the gravity is Lunar."
From New Scientist.
Scroll down for more stories in the same category. (Story submitted 10/25/2009)
Follow this kind of news @Technovelgy.| Email | RSS | Blog It | Stumble | del.icio.us | Digg | Reddit |
Would
you like to contribute a story tip?
It's easy:
Get the URL of the story, and the related sf author, and add
it here.
Comment/Join discussion ( 6 )
Related News Stories - (" Space Tech ")
Amazing Photonic Crystal Light Sail
'That sail will be twenty thousand miles at the wide part.' - Cordwainer Smith, 1960.
The New Habitable Zones Include Asimov's Ribbon Worlds
'...there's a narrow belt where the climate is moderate.' - Harl Vincent, 1931.
Will Space Stations Have Large Interior Spaces Again?
'They filed clumsily into the battleroom, like children in a swimming pool for the first time, clinging to the handholds along the side.' - Orson Scott Card, 1985.
Reflect Orbital Offers 'Sunlight on Demand' And Light Pollution
'I don't have to tell you about the seven two-mile-diameter orbital mirrors...'
Technovelgy (that's tech-novel-gee!) is devoted to the creative science inventions and ideas of sf authors. Look for the Invention Category that interests you, the Glossary, the Invention Timeline, or see what's New.
Science Fiction
Timeline
1600-1899
1900-1939
1940's 1950's
1960's 1970's
1980's 1990's
2000's 2010's
Current News
Amazing Photonic Crystal Light Sail
'That sail will be twenty thousand miles at the wide part.'
Blue Collar AI Goes To Work To Mine Its Own Crypto
Blue collar bot.
Rogue AI Replicated Itself
'Sapiro’s computer just kept dialing at random, hanging up on humans, until it got a fellow computer of the same type as itself.'
HandelBot Helps Two-Handed Robots Learn Piano
'I request that you feed the correlation between those dots and the levers of the panel into my memory banks.'
Woven Fiber Electronic Skin For Robots
'... all the feel and appearance of human flesh and epidermis.'
When AI Takes Its First Breath
Any suggestions?
Chinese Aircar Light And Airy, Not For Blade Runners
Daytime version.
The Morphing Wheel And The Smartwheel
'If you surf over a bump, the spokes contract to roll over it.'
Transporting Antimatter
'...drawing plans for the magnetic tongs and bed plates and relays.'
Polish Turns Your Nail Into A Stylus
'He wrote on it, using the pointed fingernail of his right forefinger...'
I Wish This Plaudit Pin Was More Like A Wristpad
'Frank was cursing into his wristpad, switching between Arabic and English.'
World's Largest Teleoperated Arm
'...a pair so huge that Stevens could not conceive a use for it..'
Japan's AI Buddharoid Automonks
'...each of them is a neural mapping of the mind of a Tibetan monk who actually lived.'
MIT Computerized Bionic Leg Is Part Of The User
'The leg was to function, in a way, as a servo-mechanism operated by Larry’s brain, through the mediation of the electronic brain in the leg.'
The New Habitable Zones Include Asimov's Ribbon Worlds
'...there's a narrow belt where the climate is moderate.'
California Governor Candidate Calls For Voting By Phone
'... every veephone on the continent would display, over and over, two propositions.'
