Life On The Moon May Have Existed A Long Time Ago, According to Scientists

The moon is one of the last places you’d discover life today. When Neil Armstrong landed on the Moon in 1969, it was believed that he was the first man who walked on the astronomical body. However, that might not be the case.

In fact, scientists have discovered that the Moon could have harbored life a long time ago. One window for life to flourish was shortly after its formation 4 billion years ago. The second was 3.5 billion years ago and was caused by lunar volcanic activity.

The Moon was expelling out a large number of superheated gases from its interior during both periods.

In addition to the fact that it created an atmosphere, the escaping steam could have consolidated into pools of fluid water on the Moon’s surface, turning into an ideal rearing ground for microorganisms.

Washington State University astrobiologist Dirk Schulze-Makuch said:

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

Results from recent space missions revealed that the surface of the moon is not as dry as previously suspected. With that said, life on the moon is not as impossible as initially thought.

Even today, the moon contains stores of water ice that appear to be enormous enough to help future human settlements. Quite a bit of that water is thought to have been shipped to the lunar surface by space rocks and comets billions of years ago. Be that as it may, any lunar life would be a distant memory.

At the very least, if the moon did harbor life, it raises the odds of finding it elsewhere in the solar system as well. And that’s an exciting prospect.