ABSTRACT
Robotic and manned exploration of the Moon is the next target in Solar System exploration. The availability of in situ resources such as water ice, iron oxides, helium-3, and rare earth elements, combined with permanently sunlit areas, provides the opportunity for the first settlement, either human or robotic, on the Moon. We used several selection criteria (abundance of water ice, the slope of terrain, usable energy sources, communications, and base expandability) to identify a suitable area for a future base in the southern polar crater Sverdrup-Henson. Due to the higher abundance of water ice, we found that the Sverdrup-Henson site is better suited to host a base than the nearby craters de Gerlache and Shackleton. The crater floor is partly in permanent shadow and exhibits numerous signatures of water ice. Since water ice is essential for rocket fuel production and human survival, its presence is necessary for a first settlement. Sverdrup-Henson has a flat floor ideal for building and safe traversing, is accessible from the surrounding intercrater plains, and has nearby locations suitable for communications and solar power production. Thus, the Sverdrup-Henson site holds great potential for future missions. We propose further exploration of this area through in situ measurements to better constrain available resources.
ABSTRACT
Large-scale solid bodies on Earth such as volcanoes and man-made pyramids have been visualized with solid earth muography, and the recently invented technique, acqueous muography, has already demonstrated its capability to visualize ocean tides and tsunami. In this work, atmospheric muography, a technique to visualize and monitor the vertical profile of tropic cyclones (TCs) is presented for the first time. The density distribution and time-dependent behavior of several TCs which had approached Kagoshima, Japan, has been investigated with muography. The resultant time-sequential images captured their warm cores, and their movements were consistent with the TC trails and barometric pressure variations observed at meteorological stations. By combining multidirectional muographic images with barometric data, we anticipate that muography will become a useful tool to monitor the three-dimensional density distribution of a targeted mesoscale convective system.
Subject(s)
Cyclonic Storms , Atmospheric Pressure , Earth, Planet , Humans , JapanABSTRACT
Meteorological-tsunami-like (or meteotsunami-like) periodic oscillation was muographically detected with the Tokyo-Bay Seafloor Hyper-Kilometric Submarine Deep Detector (TS-HKMSDD) deployed in the underwater highway called the Trans-Tokyo Bay Expressway or Tokyo Bay Aqua-Line (TBAL). It was detected right after the arrival of the 2021 Typhoon-16 that passed through the region 400 km south of the bay. The measured oscillation period and decay time were respectively 3 h and 10 h. These measurements were found to be consistent with previous tide gauge measurements. Meteotsunamis are known to take place in bays and lakes, and the temporal and spatial characteristics of meteotsunamis are similar to seismic tsunamis. However, their generation and propagation mechanisms are not well understood. The current result indicates that a combination of muography and trans-bay or trans-lake underwater tunnels will offer an additional tool to measure meteotsunamis at locations where tide gauges are unavailable.
