Moonquakes Triggering Landslides On Lunar Body, Claims Chinese Scientists

Last Updated:September 21, 2025, 20:09 IST

Chinese scientists found 41 new landslides on the moon, mostly triggered by moonquakes, aiding future lunar base planning.

Scientists say their findings will help to inform choice of sites for future bases on the moon, including a planned research station. (News18)

Chinese scientists have claimed that active landslides are taking place on the moon, primarily triggered by moonquakes. The new findings are expected to help in the selection of more stable sites for future lunar bases as the country aims to setup a research station in the lunar south pole region by 2035.

The researchers from Sun Yat‐sen University, Fuzhou University and Shanghai Normal University published their findings in the peer-reviewed Science Review on September 11 in which the team claimed that they detected 41 new landslides on the lunar surface by comparing 562 pairs of before and after images of 74 sites in the least stable areas on the moon, South China Morning Post reported.

While around 30 per cent of the new landslides were likely triggered by new impact events, most of them were likely induced by moonquakes, the team analysed.

“While moonquakes were detected during the Apollo missions, conventional geological wisdom posited that lunar endogenic activity had essentially ceased, leaving geological hazard assessments of lunar seismicity largely unexplored," it wrote in the journal.

“Among known triggers of landslides on the moon, endogenic seismic activity is the most plausible cause for most of the detected new landslides," the researchers wrote, as reported by the news outlet.

According to NASA, a moonquake could last for hours, unlike earthquakes, which last for tens of seconds to minutes, and can damage or tip over structures, destabilise launch vehicles or interrupt surface operations.

Lead author Xiao Zhiyong, a professor at the Planetary Environmental and Astrobiological Research Laboratory at Sun Yat-sen University in Zhuhai, told the news outlet that the team was glad to see that the landslides were rather small in scale – mostly less than 1km (3,280 feet) long and less than 100 metres (328 feet) wide.

“It provides reassurance that the landslides we observed are likely to have limited impacts. Still, we should remain cautious because disaster assessments from Earth may not be fully applicable on the moon. Operations close to steep slopes may be threatened more by active landslides," Xiao said.

According to NASA, seismometers deployed by Apollo astronauts on the moon recorded thousands of vibrations from moonquakes between 1969 and 1977.

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