"NASA Discovers 'Bridge' on Far Side of Moon"

"NASA Discovers 'Bridge' on Far Side of Moon"

By Staff Writers

"NASA has discovered an amazing lunar bridge on the far side of moon capable of carrying two lanes of traffic. The discovery was made by the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, which sent pictures of the King Crater on the moon's far side to NASA.

Click image for larger size.

Writing for NASA's LRO page, Mark Robinson, Principal Investigator of the LRO Camera team, said that the bridge was seven metres wide and 20m long and spanned a canyon between two and four stories deep. "Who would have thought?" he wrote. "Natural bridges on the Earth are typically the result of wind and water erosion - not a likely scenario on the Moon. "So how did this natural bridge form?"

NASA speculates that the formation may have come about following the collapse of a lava tube. The LRO last month confirmed a theory that the moon's surface may hide a vast network of lava tubes which may even offer the kind of shelter that would allow humans to live there. The discovery of the bridge seems to have further bolstered the theory. "Scientists believe that the astonishing formation is the result of ancient lava flows which left hollow tunnels, which in this case have fallen away and created the bridge like structure," NASA said."

- http://www.news.com.au/
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/