NASA eyes moon's dark side for astronomy, new telescopes

Anonymous — Wed, 19 May 2021 21:39:56 +0000

NASA eyes moon's dark side for astronomy, new telescopes Anonymous (not verified) Wed, 05/19/2021 - 15:39

Paul Brinkmann

From UPI: NASA scientists, as well as astronomers around the world, plan to install lunar observatories in the next few years to peer into the universe's ancient past -- just after the Big Bang.

Science equipment headed to the moon already includes a spectrometer built for launch in early 2022, known as ROLSES, which will study how sunlight charges the slight lunar atmosphere.

The acronym includes the word "sheath," which refers to a field of energy created by sunlight reflecting from the bright lunar surface. And NASA scientists are formulating plans for observatories on the far side of the moon, where darkness and clear sightlines could yield new discoveries about the universe before stars existed.

One bold plan to build a telescope in a lunar crater, the Lunar Crater Radio Telescope, has received $500,000 for further study. Read more…

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A Roadmap for Science on the Moon

Anonymous — Wed, 30 Sep 2020 17:45:03 +0000

A Roadmap for Science on the Moon Anonymous (not verified) Wed, 09/30/2020 - 11:45

Daniel Strain

From �鶹��Ѱ��Boulder Today: Scientists at CU Boulder have laid out a roadmap for a decade of scientific research at the moon.

Teams from the university will participate in four upcoming or proposed space missions that seek to use the moon as a unique laboratory for peering back to the dawn of the cosmos—collecting unprecedented data on an epoch in the life of the universe before the first stars formed.

The first of these efforts will deploy an instrument called Radiowave Observations at the Lunar Surface of the photoElectron Sheath (ROLSES). It’s slated to land on the moon in just over a year. Another involves a proposed satellite known as the Dark Ages Polarimetry Pathfinder (DAPPER). It could be in orbit around the Moon by the decade’s midway mark.

“It’s a completely unexplored part of the early universe, which we call the Dark Ages,” said Jack Burns, a professor in the Department of Astrophysical and Planetary Sciences at �鶹��Ѱ��Boulder. “We have no data from this period and no prospect of getting any data using traditional telescopes like the Hubble Space Telescope.”

Burns described the four missions during a virtual talk this month at the annual meeting of Lunar Exploration Advisory Group (LEAG), a scientific advisory body for NASA.

NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine, who also attended the meeting, shared in the excitement. Read more…

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