The case for having a permanent base on the moon as a staging point for space exploration has been made many times over the years. Actually constructing a real lunar facility presents numerous significant logistical challenges, not least of which is the genuinely astronomical cost of sending things into space.

A team of researchers has unveiled a creative solution to one of space exploration’s biggest hurdles—how to generate power on the Moon. Now, a new study shows that “moonglass” can be fabricated from lunar dust and used to make solar panels more efficiently and cheaply than transporting them from Earth.

Researchers used a synthetic version of moon dust to build working solar panels, which could eventually be created within – and used to power – a moon base of the future