WATCH | European space agency to replicate Moon's surface on Earth
Anorthosite stockpiles at Lumina’s onsite processing plant
European Space Agency (ESA) in an interesting feed on its social media handleon Tuesday (Jan 23) spoke aboutrecreating the Moon's surface on Earth!
ESA made it official back in December, pledging to roll out not one, but two cutting-edge facilitiesto simulate lunar vibes and pave the way for groundbreaking exploration technology.
The anticipation is sky-high as these futuristic spaces, set to debut in 2024, promise to catapult us into a world where the Moon's mysteries become as familiar as our own backyard.
ESAexperts, teaming up from the UK and Germany, spilled the beans on their secret ingredient - terrestrial rocksamples sourced from a Greenland mine, mirroring the very essence of lunar materials.
''To do this, we needed rock samples with similar properties to materials found on the Moon. Some of our experts from the LUNA and VULCAN facilities recently travelled to Greenland, to start a collaboration with a mine that will provide us with anorthosite, an igneous, light-coloured rock that has similar properties to material found on the Moon,'' the video caption read.
Why ESA is recreating Moon here?
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ESA's moon-duplication mission isn't just about creating a cosmic spectacle. It's a launchpad for training future astronauts in an immersive lunar environment, mirroring every inch of the lunar surface's activities.
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''They will also be used to develop new technologies, including those that use local lunar materials to generate oxygen, water, and building materials, for instance,'' ESA added.
ESA is constructing not one but two mind-blowing testbeds at the European Astronaut Centre—one mimicking lunar mare regions and the other rocking a dusty lunar highland vibe, courtesy of a whopping 20 tonnes of anorthosite.
Space enthusiasts could not hold back their excitement.
Watch | Why is NASA pushing back Moon mission timelines?
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."
(With inputs from agencies)