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the Moon/Europa Press
NASA will study The geological processes of the first planetary bodies preserved on the Moon, investigating for the first time a rare form of lunar volcanism: the domes of Gruithuisen.
Within the Artemis program, the Lunar Vulkan Imaging and Spectroscopy Explorer (Lunar-VISE) investigation consists of a suite of five instruments, two of which will be mounted on a stationary lander and three of which will be mounted on a stationary lander. in a mobile rover that will manufacture a private company for this program.
Over the course of 10 Earth days (one lunar day),Lunar-VISE will explore the top of one of the Gruithuisen domes. It is suspected that these domes were formed by sticky, silica-rich magma similar in composition to granite. On Earth, features like these need liquid water oceans and tectonic plates to form, but without these key ingredients on the Moon, lunar scientists wonder how these domes formed and evolved with time.
By analyzing the lunar regolith on top of one of these domes, the data collected and returned by Lunar-VISE’s instruments will help scientists answer fundamental open questions about how these features arose. The data will also help inform future robotic and human missions to the Moon, NASA reports.
YEAST UNDER STUDY ON THE MOON SURFACE
A second investigation The lunar object selected by NASA is the Lunar Explorer Instrument for space biology Applications (LEIA) science package, a small CubeSat-based device.
LEIA will provide biological research on the Moon, which cannot be simulated or replicated with high fidelity on Earth or the International Space Station, by delivering the yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae to the lunar surface and studying of its response to lunar radiation and gravity.
S. cerevisiae is an important model of human biology, especially in the areas of genetics, cell and molecular division and replication processes, and the response to DNA damage to environmental factors such as radiation. The data returned by LEIA, along with previously existing data from other biological studies, could help scientists answer a decades-old question about how partial gravity and actual radiation deep space in combination influence biological processes.