At White Sands National Park, New Mexico, ancient footprints left by a group of humans walking through soft mud in a strange new land have remained preserved for as much as 23,000 years after they were created, representing what may be the path of some of the earliest people to arrive in North America.
Much further away on the Moon, footprints left by astronauts Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin at Tranquility Base in 1969 also remain preserved in the lunar regolith, marking not only the first time humans ever set foot on the Moon’s surface, but also the continuing path of exploration humans have followed for thousands of years.
Now, a newly proposed scientific subfield could help humans preserve the record of human activity on the Moon, as well as more faraway destinations like Mars, and understand the natural and anthropogenic processes that could potentially impact the heritage of space exploration.
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