Researchers at the University of Hawaiʻi and the Smithsonian Institution are exploring the possibility of storing animal cells on the moon in case of a global disaster.
The plan is to create a lunar biorepository that serves as an off-site storage space operation.
Scientists picked the moon for storage because the cells must be held in extremely cold temperatures, specifically -320 degrees Fahrenheit.
According to Mary Hagedorn, a scientist at the Smithsonian National Zoo, that freezing climate does not exist on Earth.
‘Radiation is still an issue on the moon but we can bury or have this underground repository,’ she said. ‘About 2 meters of lunar solid blocks most of the radiation.’
Scientists will expose animal skin cells at ultra-low temperatures without killing them, using a storage method called cryopreservation. Researchers already had success in using this technique on the starry goby, or Hawaiian reef fish.
Hagedorn said the major goal of biorepositories is to secure the diversity of ecosystems. In case of natural disasters, like hurricanes or wildfires, researchers would reintroduce microbes into the solid ‘so it can become vital again,’ according to Hagedorn.
She said researchers don’t know how to cryopreserve many cells across all wildlife.
‘As humans, we’re probably very used to thinking about or hearing about reproductive technologies, and you may have heard of freezing sperm or human embryos … But for many other species, that’s not available,” Hagedorn said.
‘We know how to freeze sperm for many animals, but anything else, we just didn’t know how to cryopreserve and revive safely. But one thing that we can do is we can use these things called fibroblast cells. And these can be turned into stem cells, and they can be used for cloning in the future,’ she continued.
Researchers are still doing further tests on fish skin cells. The goal is to make sure the experiments can withstand radiation in order to be stored on the moon.