Date Time Researchers Explore Laser-Beaming Energy for Lunar and Terrestrial Needs Artemis will join Pink Floyd on the dark side of the moon – and the University of Virginia has contributed to getting it there. Artemis is a NASA program to return humans (including the first woman) to the moon, seeking to further explore its polar regions and the regions that remain in perpetual darkness. (Pink Floyd, on the other hand, is a rock band that made the haunting single “The Dark Side of the Moon” one of its signature hits.) NASA finds one dark spot on the lunar surface particularly intriguing. The Shackleton Crater, at the lunar south pole, is 4.2 kilometers deep and lies in perpetual darkness, though its rim is lit for more than 200 Earth days due to the five-degree ecliptic tilt of the moon in its orbit. The permanently shadowed parts of the crater have temperatures around minus-289 degrees Fahrenheit, and NASA believes there is ice in these shadows, frozen and protected from solar radiation for about 3.6 billion years. NASA personnel speculate that this ancient lunar ice can provide information about the solar system, which is about 4.6 billion years old.