Seeking clear skies and quiet, astronomers put telescopes on U.S. Moon lander

A commercial spacecraft set off today carrying two small observatories that could showcase the potential of the Moon as an astronomical platform. One, an optical telescope, aims to demonstrate the viability of lunar astronomy and encourage exploration. The other, a radio telescope, will measure Earth’s reactions to solar flare-ups and look for a predicted “electron sheath” above the Moon’s surface. Both would be the first instruments of their kind on the Moon. “It’s a new frontier for astronomy,” says Steve Durst, director of the International Lunar Observatory Association (ILOA), an education and science nonprofit building the ILO-X optical telescope. “It’s very humbling.” Astronomers have long eyed the Moon as a good spot to do their work . Its far side, protected from Earth’s hectic radio noise, is perfect for picking up faint signals from the distant universe. To see infrared signals blocked by Earth’s atmosphere, astronomers usually go to space, but orbiting infrared telescopes, such as NASA’s JWST, require sunshields and coolants to chill detectors to temperatures close to absolute zero. Put the telescope into one of the deep craters at the lunar poles that never receive any sunlight and its sensors will benefit from the crater’s permanent chill. Gravitational wave detectors could grow to enormous size and become extremely sensitive on the seismically quiet lunar surface. Astronomers hope governments’ renewed ent...
Source: ScienceNOW - Category: Science Source Type: news