Researchers believe that the extinction of species on the planet is accelerating. Some propose strengthening measures to protect particularly vulnerable animals, while others have already adopted the creation of a repository of frozen samples that would help restore biodiversity. The most famous biobank is located in Svalbard, in the permafrost region. Inspired by the example, an international group of scientists has proposed the idea of ​​​​cryostorage on the Moon.

A seed fund of plants from all over the world is stored in Svalbard. The temperature in it is about minus 18 degrees Celsius. There is no analogue yet with animal tissue and cell samples.

As he said CBS News “There’s no place on Earth cold enough for this,” said Mary Hedgedoorn of the Smithsonian National Zoo and the Nature Conservancy.

Hedgedoorn and his colleagues came up with the idea of ​​setting up a warehouse on the moon. Details are outlined in the journal article BioScience. According to scientists, there are ideal conditions for a cryobank. There is no need to spend energy to maintain the conditions, no need to maintain personnel. There are no dangerous natural disasters such as volcanism, tsunamis that could destroy the storage, moonquakes are weaker than earthquakes. There is no threat of geopolitical conflicts, as well as permafrost melting (although this may not be the case). At least for now.

Mary Hedgedoorn is a coral reef conservationist and expert in the cryopreservation of biological material.

“Imagine 90 percent of the Great Barrier Reef disappearing because of climate change. Oh well. We’ll be able to restore all the biodiversity in 100 years,” the researcher explained.

Suitable for storage are the subpolar regions of the Moon, areas that remain in eternal shadow, where temperatures drop below 160 degrees Celsius and remain stable.