Scientists Discover 200 Pits On the Moon That Are Always 63F/17C In the Shade.

"Lunar scientists think they've found the hottest places on the Moon," reports Live Science, "as well as some 200 'Goldilocks' zones that are always near the average temperature in San Francisco." Long-time Slashdot reader fahrbot-bot shared their report:The moon has wild temperature fluctuations, with parts of the moon heating up to 260 degrees Fahrenheit (127 degrees Celsius) during the day and dropping to minus 280 F (minus 173 C) at night. But the newly analyzed 200 shaded lunar pits are always always 63 F (17 C), meaning they're perfect for humans to shelter from the extreme temperatures. They could also shield astronauts from the dangers of the solar wind, micrometeorites and cosmic rays. Some of those pits may lead to similarly warm caves. These partially-shaded pits and dark caves could be ideal for a lunar base, scientists say. "Surviving the lunar night is incredibly difficult because it requires a lot of energy, but being in these pits and caves almost entirely removes that requirement," Tyler Horvath, a doctoral student in planetary science at the University of California, Los Angeles and lead author on the NASA-funded research published online July 8 in the journal Geophysical Research Letters, told Live Science.

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