Could alien tech be left on the moon? Researchers want to find out

• A new study proposes searching the moon for remnants of ancient extraterrestrial technology.
• Researchers suggest the moon's surface could preserve microscopic "technosignatures" left by alien explorers.
• Unlike Earth, the moon lacks an atmosphere or active geology that would erase such evidence.
• Future lunar missions, like NASA's Artemis program, could collect samples to test this theory.

If ancient extraterrestrial explorers ever traipsed through Earth's cosmic neighborhood, it's possible they left behind some interstellar litter in their wake.

Think of it like the loose hubcaps on your old family sedan being left to waste away on the side of the road for millennia after a cross-country trip.

And what better place to look for leftover alien refuse than a place nearby where no pesky planetary features like an atmosphere or flowing water can dispose of the evidence? That's why in a new study researchers propose looking no further than the moon to find signs that other advanced lifeforms wandered through our solar system – if they ever indeed did.

The moon also happens to be a place where fleets of astronauts and robotic spacecraft are bound in the years ahead under NASA's Artemis program. Could that make the time ripe to collect some lunar soil samples to look for remnants of extraterrestrial technology?

Here's everything to know about why the moon may be a good place to begin the search.

Researchers propose looking for ancient alien tech on the moon

The SETI Institute is famous as the nonprofit organization that uses ground-based telescopes to search for radio or laser signals in deep-space that may indicate advanced alien civilizations.

But now, one researcher at the institute is proposing looking much closer to home – the moon – for evidence of extraterrestrial life.

In a new study, geologist Lewis Pinault suggests that soil on the moon's surface, known as lunar regolith, could conceal microscopic "engineered particles" known as technosignatures that accumulated over billions of years. In other words, if alien civilizations produced debris while exploring Earth's neck of the cosmos, there's a chance at least some of it ended up on the moon.

The theory, which SETI highlighted in a September press release, was published in August on the preprint server arxiv while under peer review by the International Journal of Astrobiology.

"The moon has been quietly accumulating material from space for billions of years, much of it likely billions of years older than the moon itself,” Pinault said in a statement. “We're asking whether that ancient collection might contain microscopic traces of technologies that existed long before humans ever looked up at the sky."

Moon has no evidence of extraterrestrial 'technosignatures'

But before you allow your head to be filled with visions of moon men, not only would such material not have originated on the moon to begin with, no extraterrestrial technology has actually been found.

Instead, the researchers simply propose that technology – including artificial intelligence – now exists to search for and test such "microscopic technosignatures," according to SETI's press release.

Why the moon?

Unlike Earth, the moon has no atmosphere, flowing water or active geological features like volcanoes that would erase evidence of ancient artifacts. In fact, the moon's surface famously remains cratered and pockmarked from billions of years of being battered by asteroids and other objects from space.

That makes Earths' celestial neighbor – and only natural satellite – a potential repository of "dust from across the solar system and interstellar space," according to SETI.

The researchers modeled how extraterrestrial tech could theoretically not only travel between stars, but survive the journey and become a permanent feature of the lunar surface.

How NASA's future Artemis missions could look for alien life

The new research comes as both the United States and China race to return humans to the moon in the years ahead.

NASA's Artemis campaign aims to use a series of crewed and uncrewed missions in the years ahead to build a $20 billion moon base where rotating crews of astronauts can live and work longterm. Following the Artemis II mission in April, the U.S. space agency is targeting one more test mission in 2027 before attempting a human moon landing the following year.

SETI researchers say future moon missions offer "an unprecedented opportunity" to collect lunar samples that can be analyzed not only to better understand the moon's history, but to determine whether extraterrestrial technology ever landed on the surface – whether intentionally or by happenstance.

Eric Lagatta is the Space Connect reporter for the USA TODAY Network. Reach him at [email protected]