Fiber on the surface of the moon could help detect moonquakes

Fiber-optic cables could be used to detect moonquakes, offering a simpler way to gather seismic data to support future missions. A scientist at Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico has cowritten two studies examining how fiber-optic cables on the lunar surface could be used to detect seismic activity. Seismometers are …

[Yet Another Anonymous coward]

Find Life on the Moon?

Fibre is also the easiest way to discover ET. Assuming Clangers also have JCB drivers

[Paul Herber]

Re: Find Life on the Moon?

I think The Clangers are effectively "of no fixed abode" as far as Earth is concerned. I can't see them getting a signing certificate for those drivers.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Find Life on the Moon?

Note for .com persons: JCB = Backhoe

[Paul Herber]

I sense a FLOP, Fibre Lunar On Premises.

(No more contrived that many other acronyms)

[dmesg]

Hmm ... that first paper title

Earthquake detection on the Moon??

[It's just me]

Re: Hmm ... that first paper title

Must be quite sensitive.

[Philo T Farnsworth]

Re: Hmm ... that first paper title

The paper discusses actual terrestrial quakes detected using the setup.

The events observed from the DAS system including optical fiber deployed in the LRS box included several local and regional earthquakes. In the following analyses, we grouped results by each observed event. Responses of optical fiber depths were also evaluated through comparison of signals recorded by the broadband seismometer. In addition, we performed hammer strike (active-source) tests to evaluate standard deviations of signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) for each burial depth.¹

Personally, I think this is a good thing. We could all use more fiber in our diet.

__________

¹ Icarus: Earthquake detection in a simulated lunar regolith using distributed acoustic sensing -- Results

[Paul Herber]

Re: Hmm ... that first paper title

Surely you've heard of remote sensing ?

[MachDiamond]

Better test the jacket

A high-vacuum, high-UV environment will be tough to protect against. I have to wonder how much information on that NASA has.

A fiber lying on the surface is also susceptible to damage from meteors and rovers. Differential Thermal Coefficient of Expansion, especially across the terminator? While Outsiders lie half in light and half in shadow for some sort of bio-thermo-electrical reason, they might be the only ones that do that (and fictional as well).

[Caver_Dave]

Glad to see this technology getting an outing (pun intended)

Around the turn of the century I tried to sell the idea of embedding fibre optics into various parts of F1 cars to measure deflection under load (obviously removing the greater, but shorter term, deflection due to vibration was the biggest hurdle). I spoke to the Technical Manager at the local F1 company, but they were not interested - they could use a wind tunnel instead for development, and used a Mk 1 eyeball to look at the car in real-time. Glad to see a similar idea getting used these days.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Glad to see this technology getting an outing (pun intended)

Fibre optic monitoring systems are in use in the real world to monitor oil pipelines and cables in dodgy areas where theft of oil (or copper cabling) is a real possibility, so that staff are immediately alerted when heavy machinery is moved in next to a pipeline, or when copper cabling with an attached optic fibre is disturbed. - The position of the disturbance along the length of the fibre can be found pretty accurately.

[Luiz Abdala]

Openreach/Cityfibre/Virgin running out of excuses to not put fiber to all their customers.

I simpathize with our friends accross the pond that still don't have fiber in their homes, to allow ultra large bandwidth internet access.

But if somebody finds it is cheaper to lay fiber ON THE MOON than to finish laying cables across ol'Blighty, heads should roll.

[jonfr400]

Works in Iceland, up to a point

This technology works in Iceland, up to a point. But it has limitations. Here is current live stream of Icelandic Met Office fibre earthquake detection. There's a lot of noise in the signal. Weather, cars and so on. But earthquakes appear as horizontal lines in this tracks. Cars are vertical lines that move around on this trace. This stream can go offline without warning, then you have to find the new stream once it is re-started.

https://www.youtube.com/live/LNq5cC17d8A?si=NSB_gdP5c8U8xULP