NASA Prepares Artemis Mission To Investigate Gruithusen Dome On Moon

JAKARTA - NASA is currently known to be preparing vehicles and other things for a mission to the moon dubbed Artemis. As it progressed, the agency again announced an exciting additional research project.

The research was to solve the Gruithuisen Dome puzzle. Telescopes on Earth show scientists that there are several dome-shaped structures on the moon that differ from the surrounding terrain.

After years of observing, many conclude that the Gruithuisen Dome must be made of some kind of magma, or molten rock usually from volcanic activity, rich in silica and similar in composition to granite.

"On Earth, silica volcanoes usually form in the presence of two materials, water and plate tectonics. But neither of these is available on the moon," NASA said as quoted from its official website, Saturday, June 4.

So, it remains a mystery how the Gruithuisen Dome could have formed on the moon. With the Artemis mission, NASA is excited and ready to dissect the intricacies of the Moon's bizarre conundrum with a new science instrument, called the Vulcan Lunar Imaging and Spectroscopy Explorer or Lunar-VISE.

Lunar-VISE is a combination of five individual components, two of which will be mounted on a stationary lunar lander and three that will be mounted on a mobile rover.

Regardless, Lunar-VISE will analyze the lunar regolith at the top of the strange dome, which refers only to the blanket of loose rock and dust at the highest point of this structure.

"The two selected studies will answer important scientific questions related to the moon. The first will study the geological processes of early preserved planetary bodies on the Moon, by investigating a rare form of lunar volcanism," said deputy associate administrator for exploration at the Science Mission Directorate of NASA, Joel Kearns.

The two will study the effects of the moon's low gravity and radiation environment on yeast. Certain yeasts will be delivered to the lunar surface using a science suite called the Lunar Explorer Instrument for Space Biology Applications or LEIA.

Then, the team will wait and see what happens when the organism is exposed to microgravity and space radiation.

This is promising because the yeast they send, called Saccharomyces cerevisiae is an important model of human biology, especially in genetics, replication processes, cellular and molecular division, and the response to DNA damage to environmental factors such as radiation.

This means that the information gleaned from the Artemis yeast experiment could one day help with biological studies on Earth and reveal exactly how space affects the human body.