If calamity strikes our planet, a team at the Smithsonian argues that the only way to protect the DNA of at-risk creatures is to get it far, far away from Earth.
A group of scientists concerned about the thousands of species facing extinction believes that their salvation lies not here on Earth, but more than 230,000 miles above it.
If calamity strikes our planet, a team at the Smithsonian argues that the only way to protect the DNA of those at-risk creatures is to get it as far away from Earth as possible.
Their radical plan? Load those samples up onto a cosmic Noah’s Ark and ship them off to the moon.
In the proposal, published in July in the journal BioScience, an international team of experts provides an outline for how a lunar biorepository could feasibly be created.
The idea, which has been suggested before, involves storing the DNA of threatened animals in a vault on the lunar surface – Earth’s only natural satellite – where conditions are cold enough to preserve the samples. The method would also have the added benefit of stationing the biorepository of preserved cells well beyond the reach of any number of disasters that threaten our planet, from climate change to geopolitical strife.
A similar concept was outlined in 2021 by a group of researchers at the University of Arizona, who presented a paper for a “modern global insurance policy” at that year’s IEEE Aerospace Conference.
Were the plan to ever be accepted by the global community, it would still be decades before any kind of spacecraft would be making the lunar voyage with the genetic makeup of any number of species on board. But the experts insist urgent – and drastic – action is required to protect a multitude of critically endangered species.
Here’s a look inside the proposed lunar Noah’s Ark – the plan to essentially build a large freezer to cryogenically preserve animal DNA on the moon.
Why the moon?
Here on Earth, cryogenic preservation requires electricity and liquid nitrogen to accomplish.
But on the moon, the celestial body’s shadowed craters create conditions frigid enough to keep DNA samples frozen year-round without the need for human intervention, the team wrote in their proposal. The deep craters near the polar regions are never exposed to sunlight, making those areas of the moon one of few places to reach the ultra-low temperature of -410 degrees Fahrenheit – cold enough to preserve cryogenically frozen animal skin and tissue for future cloning.