On Tuesday (Jan 23), the European Space Agency (ESA) announced a jaw-dropping expedition to recreate the Moon’s surface on Earth via social media! ESA made it official in December, promising to launch not one, but two cutting-edge facilities aimed at simulating lunar vibes and paving the way for breakthrough exploration technology. The excitement is palpable as these future venues, slated to debut in 2024, promise to transport us to a world where the Moon’s mysteries become as familiar as our backyard.
The ESA’s moon-duplication effort is about more than just producing a celestial display
ESA experts from the UK and Germany revealed their secret ingredient: terrestrial rock samples acquired from a Greenland mine, which closely resemble lunar minerals. ”To do this, we needed rock samples with characteristics similar to those found on the moon. Some of our scientists from the LUNA and VULCAN facilities recently travelled to Greenland to begin a collaboration with a mine that will give us anorthosite, an igneous, light-coloured rock with qualities comparable to material found on the Moon, according to the video caption.
The ESA’s moon-duplication effort is about more than just producing a celestial display. It serves as a training ground for future astronauts in a fully immersive lunar habitat that replicates the activities of the lunar surface. ‘They will also be utilized to create new technologies, such as those that employ local lunar resources to generate oxygen, water, and building materials,” ESA stated. ESA is building not one, but two mind-blowing testbeds at the European Astronaut Centre—one that resembles lunar mare regions and the other that has a dusty lunar highland vibe, thanks to a staggering 20 tons of anorthosite. Space aficionados could not contain their excitement. A user quipped, “Wow, this is amazing! Will this be open to the public? I ain’t no astronaut but I want to see the moon.”