From Earth to the Moon
For more than a century, pedologists - the scientists who study soils - have developed methods to understand, classify, and map Earth's soils. This study shows how that expertise can be applied to the Moon, proposing a common framework for understanding lunar soils.
"Pedology has spent more than a century learning how to classify and map soils on Earth. We believe this expertise can now help guide the next era of lunar exploration."
- Jérôme Juilleret, Engineer in Soil Sciences and Hydrology at LIST and lead author of the study
Why classify lunar soils?
As space agencies prepare for long-term missions, understanding lunar soils is becoming increasingly important.
Future explorers will need to select landing sites, build infrastructure and make use of local resources. Scientists therefore need a consistent way to describe and compare the Moon's surface. Until now, no internationally recognized classification system has existed.
Looking beneath the lunar surface
To test their framework, the research team analyzed a soil core collected during NASA's Apollo 15 mission in 1971.
The researchers identified seven buried soil horizons, each recording a different stage in the Moon's geological evolution. Their work demonstrates that lunar soils can be systematically described, classified and mapped, providing a common scientific language for future exploration.
The study also challenges the long-held perception of lunar soil as simply "dust". Although it contains no biological activity, it has evolved over billions of years through physical and chemical processes, creating distinct structures and properties worthy of scientific classification.
Read the study here.