High-energy physicists spend billions of dollars building sub-atomic particle colliders on Earth. Among other reasons the facilities are expensive is that they require vacuum conditions and frigid temperatures. As lunar colonization approaches, Nikolai Zaitsev at Cornell University has published a memo suggesting that the Moon might be the most promising location to build a new collider. The Moon may be remote and difficult to reach, but it has several advantages.
First, it’s very cold. Because the Moon has virtually no atmosphere, locations shaded from direct sunlight dip to minus 100 degrees Fahrenheit — in the range of typical cryogenic setups on Earth, summarizes Live Science. Cold temperatures are needed to ensure that the superconducting magnets that accelerate particles to near the speed of light don’t melt down.
Second, atmospheric vacuum comes for free. The Moon has a vacuum 10 times better than anything physicists have manufactured in their experiments, which reduces the number of stray molecules interfering with experiments.
Thirdly, summarizes Live Science, the Moon could serve as a platform for shooting high-energy neutrinos to the Earth and studying how they change “flavors” as they fly. The distance between the Moon and Earth gives them a greater distance to change form but is close enough that it would be possible to capture them in sufficient quantities to study. Similarly, a lunar facility could point particles to Earth for the study of cosmic ray research.