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When you look up into the night sky, the brightest thing in sight is the Moon for most of the month: our orbiting satellite and the closest celestial neighbor. Right now, thanks to a deadline set by Vice President Mike Pence, everyone is focused on that lunar surface: how are we going to get there and how are we going to make it safe for people to stay.
The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) is also looking beyond how we can use the Moon to improve our understanding of the Universe. With that in mind, they plan to use a crater on the dark side of the Moon to build a lunar telescope. But how will this telescope work and why is the dark side of the Moon the best option to build this device?
Building a lunar telescope
Right now, researchers are proposing to place an ultra-long wavelength radio telescope on the dark side of the Moon. This area is the surface that always moves away from us because our satellite is blocked by tides. That means that although it orbits us, it does not rotate on its axis, so we only see one side of the Moon. If the project progresses, the telescope will be suspended over a large crater, one 2-3 miles in diameter, on the far side of the Moon.
The biggest challenge facing radio telescopes on Earth is electromagnetic interference (EM). Everything from your cell phone to the microwave in your kitchen produces EM fields. We have learned to compensate for some of this interference. However, we are missing much of the information that we might otherwise collect because our ionosphere is deviating frequencies less than 30 megahertz away from the planet
By placing a telescope on the other side of the Moon, scientists help you avoid the EM interference we generate on Earth. Furthermore, low frequency emissions will not be lost since the Moon does not have an ionosphere to deflect those radio waves.
NASA is currently awarding $ 125,000 for phase one of its innovative advanced concepts program to allow researchers to study the feasibility of such a telescope.
Creating a perpetual presence on the Moon
Creating a massive telescope on the far side of the Moon is just one of the things NASA is working on right now regarding our satellite. In early 2019, Vice President Mike Pence gave NASA five years Regarding two things: getting humans back to the moon by 2024 and having a permanent human presence on the lunar surface by 2028.
A leaked NASA plan obtained by Ars Technica contains details for a surprising 37 throws to the moon During this period, it will bring the Artemis astronauts to the lunar surface. Scientists will also work on creating the planned Gateway orbit station around the Moon and building a permanent base on the Moon’s surface.
The biggest challenge in moving everything to the Moon is the cost of putting the necessary supplies of astronauts into orbit. Cost approximately $ 10,000 to launch 0.99 pounds into space, so moving things like steel, concrete, and glass would be prohibitively expensive.
NASA is looking for ways to cut costs. These strategies could include using astronaut urine, or rather, urea in your urine, as an ingredient in cement that they will eventually use to create permanent lunar structures.
Becoming an interstellar species
We are still a long way from traveling the Universe as we do in science fiction stories. However, the new telescope on the dark side of the Moon could paint an image of outer space that we could not see otherwise. Either way, we are taking our first steps into the void and heading to become the interstellar species we have always dreamed of being.
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