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Image sent by Beresheet’s moon lander before communications were lost. Via Twitter

The Associated Press reports that

scientists have confirmed a cave on the moon, not far from where Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin landed 55 years ago, and suspect there are hundreds more that could house future astronauts….It’s located at the Sea of Tranquility, just 250 miles (400 kilometers) from Apollo 11’s landing site. The pit, like the more than 200 others discovered up there, was created by the collapse of a lava tube….The radar data reveals only the initial part of the underground cavity, according to the scientists. They estimate it’s at least 130 feet (40 meters) wide and tens of yards (meters) long, probably more….

Most of the pits seem to be located in the moon’s ancient lava plains, according to the scientists. There also could be some at the moon’s south pole, the planned location of NASA’s astronaut landings later this decade. Permanently shadowed craters there are believed to hold frozen water that could provide drinking water and rocket fuel….

The findings suggest there could be hundreds of pits on the moon and thousands of lava tubes. Such places could serve as a natural shelter for astronauts, protecting them from cosmic rays and solar radiation as well as from micrometeorite strikes. Building habitats from scratch would be more time-consuming and challenging, even when factoring in the potential need of reinforcing the cave walls to prevent a collapse, the [Italian-led] team said.

Rocks and other material inside these caves — unaltered by the harsh surface conditions over the eons — also can help scientists better understand how the moon evolved, especially involving its volcanic activity.

The moon has pits and caves where temperatures stay at roughly 63 degrees Fahrenheit, making human habitation a possibility, according to research from planetary scientists at the University of California, Los Angeles. Although much of the moon’s surface fluctuates from temperatures as high as 260 degrees during the day to as low as 280 degrees below zero at night, researchers say these stable spots could transform the future of lunar exploration and long-term habitation,” reports NPR. High and low temperatures on the moon are especially taxing, because “a day or night on the moon is equivalent to a little over two weeks on Earth — making long-term research and habitation difficult with such extremely hot and cold temperatures.” The pits with mild temperatures

most likely come from collapsed lava tubes — tunnels that form from cooled lava or crust….The researchers think overhangs inside of these lunar pits, which were initially discovered in 2009, could be the reason for the stable temperature….Using images from NASA’s Diviner Lunar Radiometer Experiment to determine the fluctuation of the moon’s pit and surface temperatures, the researchers focused on an area about the size of a football field in a section of the moon called the Mare Tranquillitatis. They used modeling to study the thermal properties of the rock and lunar dust in the pit.

“Humans evolved living in caves, and to caves we might return when we live on the moon,” said … a UCLA press release.

There are still plenty of other challenges to establishing any sort of long-term human residence on the moon — including growing food and providing enough oxygen. The researchers made clear that NASA has no immediate plans to establish a base camp or habitations there.

The moon has other recently discovered resources as well: “For a long time scientists thought that there was no atmosphere on the Moon, but recent studies have confirmed that there is one. The very thin atmosphere, known as an exosphere, contains helium, argon, neon, ammonia, methane and carbon dioxide.”

Setting up space colonies would be difficult and costly. As an article at ScienceDirect notes, “Establishing self-sustaining Martian settlements will require mastering in-situ resource utilization (ISRU) to produce life support consumables using local materials. The Martian regolith, water ice reserves, and atmosphere offer raw materials to bootstrap a bio-regenerative ecosystem.”

China’s space probe to the far side of the moon recently returned to Earth with a collection of rare moon rocks. This year, a Japanese probe landed on the moon.