Abraham Loeb and Manasvi Lingam from Harvard University claim that evidence of alien life may be hiding on the Moon’s surface. They say that as there is no atmosphere on the Moon, all objects that are heading towards it don’t burn up in the atmosphere and reach the lunar service. Moreover, the Earth’s satellite is geologically inactive, which means that everything that has landed on it for the past billion few billions of years was preserved there.
“Serving as a natural mailbox, the lunar surface collected all impacting objects over the past few billions of years. Without checking our mailbox, we would never know that such a message arrived,” Abraham Loeb wrote in his op-ed.
Most of the objects that reached the lunar’s surface originated from within our solar system, however the discovery of Oumuamua, the first known interstellar object to enter our solar system, indicates that a thorough examination of the Moon may lead to new discoveries. Professor Loeb says based on the current measurements, the lunar surface may contain as much as 30 parts of interstellar objects per million surface material.
"In case some interstellar impactors carry the building blocks of extraterrestrial life, one could extract these biomarkers by analysing lunar surface samples. The fundamental question is whether distant life resembles the biochemical structures we find on Earth. Similarities might imply that there exists a unique chemical path for life everywhere or that life was transferred between systems”, Professor Loeb wrote in his op-ed.
Abraham Loeb points out that his recent study with Manasvi Lingam provides a new incentive for a base on the Moon. “The lunar study shortcuts the need to send spacecraft on extremely long missions to visit other star systems.”
NASA said astronauts will return to the Moon by 2024. The space agency also hopes to establish a sustainable presence on the Earth’s satellite by 2028 in order to send missions to Mars.
