Scientists prepare to send millions of human sperm and egg samples to moon, here’s all you need to know
The environment is changing rapidly with time. The pollution levels, increasing carbon footprint, threat of nuclear war and many other things have created a panic among the global community. Scientists are planning to colonise other planets. In a recent development, scientists are prepared to start a sperm bank on the surface of Earth’s natural satellite, the moon.
The plan is to create a storage unit for human sperms and ova at the surface of the moon. The climate on the moon is not favourable for human existence and hence, it can be used t store human’s invaluable sources.
The plan is referred to as a “modern global insurance policy” and it includes humans saving up sperms and ova from 6.7 million species on Earth including humans on the moon. As a part of this plan, the human sperm bank or the lunar gene bank will be situated beneath the surface of the moon.
The Earth at this moment faces the threat of extinction more than anytime else in its history. Natural disasters, climate change are some of the few threats to our Earth and thus scientists believe that now is the time to begin preserving the future of humanity.
The study “Lunar Pits and Lava Tubes for a Modern Ark”, was undertaken by Jekan Thanga of the University of Arizona. He has suggested that storing the human sperm in a ‘seed vault’ situated in lunar pits were recently discovered by scientists. In any event of global destruction, this ‘ark’ will be preserving many species including humans.
Jekan Thanga believes that the pits on the moon are ideal for storing human and other species specimens. New York Post quoted him as saying that the pits run 80-100 meters underground, and it provides a safe shelter from the surface of the moon which constantly undergoes changes in the temperature, and would also offer protection from the solar radiation.
Jekan Thanga co-related the on-going events on Earth to previous acts of extinction on the Earth and added that how this planet has lost much of its diversity over the last few decades.
However, the concept of the ark is not new to humanity, it is already being employed at the Svalbard Global Seed Vault on the island of Spitsbergen in the Arctic Sea that stores plant seeds among others at the facility.