On the far side of the moon is this Giordano Bruno pit. A crater will be the main place to build a lunar telescope.
NASA / Goddard / Arizona State University
NASA’s long delay James Webb Web Space Telescope While illuminating the birth of the first galaxies of the universe, one will be able to see the deep depths of the past. But some astronomers even want to go further to investigate the stars. The radical concept for the lunar telescope can take us there.
A team of astronomers from the University of Texas at Austin has reconsidered the idea for a liquid-mirror telescope on the moon that originally floated a decade ago, but was sheltered by NASA. Researchers have decided to publish a new paper on this idea in a future issue of the Astrophysical Journal.
Astronomers have theorized that the very first stars formed 13 billion years ago, before galaxies came together. “This moment of first light is beyond the capabilities of current or near future telescopes. Therefore, it is important to think about the ‘ultimate’ telescope, which is able to observe those elusive stars directly on the edge of time,” he said. Co-author Walker Brom in a McDonald Observatory statement on Monday.
The lunar telescope would be unusual, breaking with its use The solid mirrors we saw with James Webb. “The telescope’s mirror will be the spinning vat of the liquid, which is topped by the metal – and thus reflected – the liquid,” the observatory said. Mercury is an example of a metal that works for this application.
This picture shows what a liquid-mirror telescope would look like on the moon.
Roger Angel et al. / Univ. Arizona
The mirror must be 330 feet (100 meters) in diameter, and it can be made into a lunar pit at one of the moon’s poles. It can run on solar power.
Liquid-based telescopes will be easier to transport to the moon than those made of more conventional materials. Its size and location will make it incredibly powerful.
Considering some recreational earth telescope naming conventions (check out Very large array U.S. And in a very large telescope in Chile), the lunar observatory would be called “eventually a large telescope”.
This is not the only lunar telescope concept scientists are investigating. NASA provides funding for research into the Radio Telescope Idea It will transform a lunar pit into a dish. This requires the use of robots to arrange the wire mesh on a pit.
The first stars are the final original story.
“The emergence of the first stars marks a turning point in the history of the universe,” Bromme said, “while the primitive conditions determined by the Big Bang gave way to growing global complexities, ultimately to planets, life, and intelligent beings like us.”
