With scientists desperate to set up camp on the moon, they have identified a series of tunnels to overcome obstacles faced.
The moon has no atmosphere, so it is unable to protect potential inhabitants from the likes of radiation and meteor impacts, which is why no human has spent longer than three days there.
But by using the underground tubes as a base, the surface of the moon overhead would go someway to protecting people.
Lava tubes are channels carved out naturally by flowing lava. Once the lava has stopped, it can sometimes form a hollow tube with hard crusts around the edges.
In a location known as the Marius Hills on the moon, there are a series of lava tubes which stretch for kilometres.
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Junichi Haruyama, a senior researcher at JAXA, Japan’s space agency, said: “It’s important to know where and how big lunar lava tubes are if we’re ever going to construct a lunar base.
“But knowing these things is also important for basic science. We might get new types of rock samples, heat flow data and lunar quake observation data.”
Scientists believed lava tubes existed, but have not been confirmed until now.
The experts at JAXA discovered them by using radar data from the SELENE spacecraft – a Japanese lunar orbiter – and combined it with information from GRAIL – A Nasa project to collect high quality information on the moon.
Jay Melosh, a GRAIL co-investigator and distinguished professor of earth, atmospheric and planetary sciences at Purdue University, said: “They knew about the skylight in the Marius Hills, but they didn’t have any idea how far that underground cavity might have gone.
“Our group at Purdue used the gravity data over that area to infer that the opening was part of a larger system.
“By using this complimentary technique of radar, they were able to figure out how deep and high the cavities are.”