Emily Chan
Scattered around the solar system are bits and pieces of material left behind by various space missions, including Apollo 17 in 1972, which was the last time that humans had set foot on the moon.
As NASA and other agencies plan to send humans to the moon again later in the decade, researchers from the Kansas Geological Survey at the University of Kansas have proposed the idea of planetary geoarchaeology.
In a new study, they argue that archaeologists should get involved in space missions to see how the lunar environment is changing human artifacts left on the surface. If possible, any spacecraft, experiments, or trash can be preserved.
Since the start of space exploration, humans have launched over 6,700 satellites and spacecraft from around the globe. The United States alone is the source of more than 4,500 satellites in space.
The researchers are working to draw attention to the analysis, documentation, and preservation of artifacts on the moon because they are at high risk of disappearing forever, especially with the upcoming planned lunar missions by some countries.
“The United States is trying to get boots on the moon again, and China is as well. We’ve already had at least four countries accidentally crash into the moon recently. There are a lot of accidental crashes and not a lot of protections right now,” Holcomb said.
According to the Encyclopedia of Global Archaeology, space archaeology is “the study of material culture associated with space exploration from the twentieth century onward.” Space exploration first began around the 1920s, so artifacts are roughly a century old.
Planetary geoarchaeology will be a new subfield of space archaeology. It refers to the study of how cultural and natural processes of a world, such as Earth’s moon and Mars, affect artifacts on the surface of the world.
Satellites and spacecraft traveling to another world don’t count as planetary geoarchaeological sites because they are still in orbit. However, their crash or landing sites would qualify.
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