Lunar telescope will search for ancient radio waves
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Loading... - Randy Watson
- 09 Mar 2023
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DOE and NASA are collaborating to land a radio telescope on the far side of the moon and probe an unexplored era of the early universe
Scientists at the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Brookhaven National Laboratory are leading a new effort to land a radio telescope on the moon. If successful, the project will mark the first step towards exploring the Dark Ages of the universe.
The Dark Ages are an early era of cosmological history starting about 380,000 years after the Big Bang. There were no stars or planets in the Dark Ages. It’s a point in time that scientists have never been able to observe. Though radio waves from the Dark Ages still linger in space, the abundance of radio interference on Earth has masked these signals from scientists seeking to study them.
If cosmologists could detect radio waves from the Dark Ages—what is known as the “Dark Ages Signal”—they could help uncover answers to some of the universe’s biggest mysteries, such as the nature of dark energy or the formation of the universe itself.
“Modeling the universe is easier before stars have formed. We can calculate almost everything exactly,” said Brookhaven physicist Anže Slosar. “So far, we can only make predictions about earlier stages of the universe using a benchmark called the cosmic microwave background. The Dark Ages Signal would provide a new benchmark. And if predictions based on each benchmark don’t match, that means we’ve discovered new physics.”
Now, a new project called the Lunar Surface Electromagnetics Experiment-Night (LuSEE-Night) aims to access the Dark Ages Signal for the first time. LuSEE-Night is a remarkable concept for a radio telescope that will be developed in collaboration between NASA and DOE, with Brookhaven Lab leading DOE’s role in the project and DOE’s Lawrence Berkeley National Lab providing key technical support. Read More…
