Today in mysterious moon holes...

Hey, remember the moon? You know, Earth's largest natural satellite? We were kind of into it for a while and then, like an elliptical machine 2,159 miles in diameter, America lost interest. Fortunately, the rest of the world is still interested in space and yesterday, JAXA announced that they've discovered something exciting on the moon.

Tiny pencils and golf balls?

Look Japan, you do you, but
that's not how acronyms work.

Well, ok, something science exciting, so lower your expectations appropriately. JAXA is Japan's NASA and the acronym stands for Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency and they-wait, hang on, J-A-E-A...you know for a bunch of literal rocket scientists they're not great at acronyms. Anyway, they have a probe called the Selenological and Engineering Explorer Probe, which by their own acronym logic should be called 'SEXP' but instead is called Kaguya after a princess from the moon in Japanese folklore.

Confused? Of course you are. I am too. I mean, what's up with Japan and moon princesses?

All I'm saying is that I don't live in Japan but I can now
name two completely different Japanese moon princesses
just off the top of my head. I didn't even have to Google.

Hey, what did we ever
do to the moon? Oh, right...

But I may have strayed from my point. Using Kaguya, JAXA has confirmed the existence of a vast, subterranean-ok, sub-selenian, tunnel. The tunnel, which selenololologists...lunologists...moon experts believe is a lava tube formed billions of years ago, is three hundred feet wide and 31 miles long. Yeah, miles with an 'M.' Yikes. It's basically the lunar equivalent of the Mines of Moria and JAXA scientists are hoping that it might be used as shelter from the extreme temperatures, radiation and micro meteorites with which the moon might try to murder us. You know, out of spite.

Three! Oh, wait, I think Rita Repulsa
might have been a witch. But she did have
a castle on the moon so...half credit?

Ok, hurray for science, right? Well, yes, but I'd like to sound a note of caution. If hackneyed sci-fi has taught us anything, and I like to think it has, it's that poking around in big dark holes, particularly big dark holes on the moon, usually ends in disaster. Cat Women, Deceptions, Inhumans, Nazis, Rita Repulsa, the point is, the moon is a distant, mysterious place and now someone's found a deep dark hole in it. Is it necessarily the best idea to go charging in? Well yes, of course it is. This is, after all science. But tin-foil hat crazy theories about what may be lurking up there aside, the most dangerous threat posed by this discovery may be, in a typical hackneyed twist, man.

I mean humans, not like, a man. Maybe I'm just paranoid and cynical, but everyone with a space program is going to want a piece of this mighty moon hole. It used to be just us and the Soviets, but now it's us, Russia, China, India, Europe, Japan and rich people. It's prime real estate for things like science and Newt Gingrich's child labor moon mine. Are we really going to rely on the spirit international sense of goodwill and cooperation to avoid some kind of moon war?

Because...you know...