Scientists have proposed sending sperm samples and eggs taken from 6.7 million species on Earth to an “ark” based on the moon as a “modern global insurance policy.”
The lunar genebank, which can also house seed and germ samples, is expected to be built beneath the moon’s surface, in a hollow, cooled lava tube.
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Samples deposited in astronomy (the haven in analogous to Noah’s Ark) will be preserved refrigerated in extremely cold temperatures, with the facility powered by solar panels on the surface of the moon.
The “ship” will preserve the Earth’s genetic diversity in the event of a global catastrophe, such as that might be caused by climate change, a massive volcano eruption or an asteroid collision.
“The Earth is, of course, a volatile environment,” said study author and mechanical engineer Jikan Thanga from the University of Arizona.
He added, “As humans, we had close contact about 75,000 years ago with the eruption of the enormous Toba volcano, which caused a cooling period that lasted 1,000 years, and according to some, this corresponds to an estimated decline in human diversity.”
He continued: “Because human civilization has such a large footprint, if it were to collapse, this may have a negative cascading effect on the rest of the planet.”
The idea of establishing gene banks to restore lost biodiversity in the future is not new. More than a million seed samples are currently stored in the Svalbard Global Seed Vault, on the island of Spitsbergen, in the Arctic Sea, for example.
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However, Professor Thanga and his colleagues explained that locating such facilities on the ground also makes them vulnerable to accidental loss.
Climate change, for example, has the potential to drive many species to final extinction in the future, and at the same time, the rise in sea levels that will accompany global warming will see the Svalbard vault being lost beneath the waves.
Building a genetic storage facility on the lunar surface will be a big undertaking. Thanga calculates that transporting about 50 samples for each of the 6.7 million target species would require 250 launches.
For comparison, it took a total of 40 missile launches to assemble the International Space Station in low Earth orbit.
The team proposes to create a lunar “Noah’s Ark” inside the lava tube, a hollow tunnel formed billions of years ago when molten rock flowed underground, eventually leaving behind a network of hundreds of tubes each about 100 meters in diameter.
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Despite the science-fiction image of glass domes that will decorate the surface of the moon according to human settlement plans, it is more likely that future lunar residents will want to settle underground, where they will be protected from solar radiation, meteorites and the flow of temperatures.
In the researchers’ suggestion, the astronomy facility can be accessed via two or more elevator poles to the roof, one of which is intended to transport building materials to the base, so that it can be extended along the lava tube.
The initial setup for the base could be supported by another project from Professor Thanga’s team, specifically a small flying and bouncing robot called SphereX.
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These machines can be used to enter lava tubes to collect samples of lunar dust and rocks and to collect data about the planning, temperature and composition of the caves that can be used to determine the suitability of construction.
The main backbone of the base will be a series of cylindrical “cryopreservation” units, in which stacked rows of Petri dishes containing samples are archived.
The team said the seeds would need to be cooled to -180 degrees Celsius, while the stem cells should be kept cooler at -196 degrees Celsius. (For comparison, the Pfizer vaccine for COVID-19 is only stored at -70 ° C).
The full results of the study were presented at the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) space conference, which is taking place from March 6 to 13, 2021.
Source: Daily Mail
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