A Modern Day Noah's Ark?

As many of us are aware, the effects of climate change are becoming more and more apparent. From the melting of the polar ice caps to powerful life-threatening hurricanes to blazing hot summers, all have a huge impact on people, wildlife and the environment.

Scientists are now gathering plans to send plant and animal cells to the moon, in attempts to safeguard Earth’s biodiversity! Within the moon’s south pole there is a permanently shaded area which typically remains around -196 degrees Celsius, which would allow these endangered cells to be protected long term through a method known as cryopreservation. Usually when cells are being collected, they are stored within biorepositories, essentially a huge library keeping the biospecimens safe. The idea is to have a biorepository within this shadowy region of the moon. This idea brings hope that soon to be extinct creatures can continue to exist through the protection of their cells.

What species would go on the moon first?

Mary Hagedorn and her colleagues of the Smithsonian National Zoo and Conservation Biology Institute in Washing DC wrote about this lunar Noah’s Ark proposition in the summer of 2024 in a published article for BioScience. She explained how the species to be stored on the moon would be prioritised, starting with endangered species, species with a large impact on habitats, also known as ecosystem engineers, and species with the potential to help humans with space exploration.

Why on the moon?

So, why does this biorepository need to be on the moon. Ironically, as well as protecting these species from climate change, the biorepository also needs to be protected from the impacts of changing climates on Earth. Something that the Svalbard Global Seed Vault in Norway know all too well about. The Svalbard Global Seed Vault utilises the freezing temperatures of the Arctic Circle to give home to hundreds of thousands of seeds in a “doomsday” style storage facility. The collection is the largest in the world and “contains 13,000 years of agricultural history” claims Brian Lainoff, who is the lead partnership coordinator of the company (Crop Trust) who manage the vault. In 2017, melting permafrost due to climate change resulting in unseasonably warm temperatures led to the vault being flooded putting the seed collection at risk. Thankfully, the global seed vault is still operating today, working hard to collect and preserve the world’s crops. Researchers explain how this event highlights the need for an alternative plan to protecting our biorepositories.

What issues are involved with this plan?

As exciting as this plan for a lunar Noah’s Ark sounds, there are plenty of questions still left unanswered such as, how would the different levels of radiation and gravity on the moon affect the samples? What about the dust on the moon, could this contaminate the samples and get into storage containers? Not to mention the fluctuating temperatures which still occur despite the region of the moon’s south pole being consistently dark. Moreover, another big challenge would be coordinating and getting stakeholders and nations invested into the project.

To conclude, this idea is still in its early stages and would require a lot of hard work and collaboration for it to come to fruition. However, this is still an incredibly cool concept to think about as well as its potential to protect Earth’s precious biodiversity.