[gtowey]

Funny, as I was reading the original article, I was thinking that anything left on the moon would survive being recycled by plate tectonics.

It seems like reaching the moon isn't such a stretch for any technological civilization, so the lack of preexisting artifacts counts as pretty definitive for me.

[saidnooneever]

point at a spot on the moon which was not hit by an object, its not easy. very big things have hit it too.

additionally radiation is much more so decay is accelerated a lot? (might be wrong but i think so?)

[gtowey]

Are you saying that things on the moon are less likely to survive because of meteor impacts and radiation?

If so I think you misunderstood a few things. The earth is hit by far more meteors than the moon because of its stronger gravity well. You see the moon covered in craters not because it's hot more often, but because there is no erosion or plate tectonics to erase them. You see basically all the craters over a billion years on display.

Also, radiation doesn't just randomly destroy things. It's harmful to biology for sure, but a chunk of metal on the moon isn't going to be much affected by the level of radiation present. Like the craters, we would expect it to remain for a very long time. Radiation can make metals brittle, but without atmosphere it's unlikely to turn to dust unless someone were to go touch it.