There May Have Been Life On The Moon 4 Billion Years Ago, Per New Study

Earth’s moon may have been habitable early-on after its formation, shows a new study, published yesterday in the journal Astrobiology.

The research is based on previous studies that looked into samples of lunar rock and soil, as well as the results from recent space missions, and argues that, while “uninhabitable and lifeless today,” the moon could have been fit to support life billions of years ago.

According to Phys.org, the study authors believe that the moon may have been hospitable to life during two intervals in its distant past, which the researchers referred to as “windows for lunar habitability.”

In their study, astrobiologists Dirk Schulze-Makuch and Ian Crawford, from Washington State University and the University of London in the U.K., respectively, speculate that Earth’s moon may have been briefly habitable four billion years ago — shortly after the satellite was spawned from our planet’s violent collision with Theia, as previously reported by the Inquisitr.

The astrobiologists placed the second window of habitability some 3.5 billion years ago, when the moon was going through an intense period of volcanic activity. The duo suggests that, during both intervals, volcanic gases spewing from the moon’s interior could have splashed the lunar surface with water vapor, rendering it potentially habitable for a few million years.

This outgassing activity could have led to the formation of liquid water pools on the moon’s surface, while also thickening its atmosphere — which would have kept the pools in place for the aforementioned time interval.

“It looks very much like the Moon was habitable at this time,” Schulze-Makuch said. “There could have actually been microbes thriving in water pools on the Moon until the surface became dry and dead.”

As Live Science points out, the study doesn’t present conclusive evidence that the moon actually hosted life. In fact, while organic compounds did turn up on Mars, as the Inquisitr reported last month, no amino acids or other biosignatures were ever uncovered on the moon.

However, this latest research paper lists a series of arguments showing that life could have endured on the lunar surface and not be immediately wiped off four billion and 3.5 billion years ago.

“If liquid water and a significant atmosphere were present on the early Moon for long periods of time, we think the lunar surface would have been at least transiently habitable,” Schulze-Makuch said in a statement.

Per a previous report from the Inquisitr, in 2009 NASA’s Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Satellite detected water ice trapped under the surface near the moon’s poles. A more recent study suggested that the satellite could be harboring even more water than previously believed, as shown by an analysis of some special lunar meteorites.

Today, the Moon is about as inhospitable to life as it gets. But long ago? That’s an entirely different story.https://t.co/cm9ow9Zaq1

— Astronomy Magazine (@AstronomyMag) July 24, 2018

At the same time, the new research shows that “the early Moon may have been protected by a magnetic field,” which would have shielded any potential life forms from the radiation of the solar wind — the outflow of charged particles coming from the sun and traveling across the entire solar system, reports the Inquisitr.

The two researchers theorize that major asteroid impacts, which frequently occurred in the solar system when the moon was still young, could have transferred primitive organisms — such as the ancient fossilized cyanobacteria discovered on Earth and dated back to 3.5 billion and 3.8 billion years ago — from our planet to its satellite.

The matter could be settled with a future exploration mission to the moon, aiming to retrieve soil samples from deposits dating back to the two periods in order to analyze their water content and see if they hold the building blocks of life, note Schulze-Makuch and Crawford.