During the Apollo missions of the 1970s, several seismometers were flown to the moon, where they collected data on lunar seismic trembling for eight years. The data showed some lunar quakes were as powerful as a magnitude 5.

Unlike the Earth, the moon is not tectonically active. Lunar quakes have different origins: Some are caused by day-to-night thermal differences as the surface varies in temperature, others that occur deeper may be caused by Earth's gravitational pull, and still others are caused by the moon slowly cooling and contracting over time. Understanding how, when, and where these quakes occur is critical for planning missions to the moon, especially if permanent structures like a lunar base are to be built on its surface.

A new study demonstrates that an emerging new seismological technology called distributed acoustic sensing (DAS) would be able to measure lunar quakes with unprecedented precision. As NASA's upcoming Artemis missions plan to return to the moon to, among other research aims, deploy new seismic sensors, the study makes a case for using DAS rather than conventional seismometers.

A paper, titled "Assessing the feasibility of Distributed Acoustic Sensing (DAS) for moonquake detection," describing the research appears in the journal Earth and Planetary Science Letters.