Giant Telescopes On MOON: Space is the next big frontier, and every country is trying to be on the top in space exploration. Several ideas are also hovering regarding these endeavours, one of them is installing a giant telescope on the lunar surface. Another idea is to build a giant radio dish spanning an entire crater on the far side of the moon. A different concept suggests make a mega triangle of lasers to find ripples in space-time and trace them to different collisions of black holes.
Another proposal to involves using SpaceX’s Starship to construct a moon base-hotel-telescope featuring an observatory. This observatory would be huge, and would be stronger than the most powerful telescope ever launched into space – James Webb Space Telescope.
Recently, these moon-telescope advocates, including astrophysicist Joseph Silk, met during a conference of the American Astronomical Society in New Orleans and discussed their plans, Business Insider reported.
An illustration of the Laser Interferometer Lunar Antenna, a proposed observatory to detect gravitational waves on the moon
NASA’s Mega Moon Plan
It may sound like next to impossible, but some astronomers are very serious and think that they can get their hardware on the lunar surface in the next decade. American space agency NASA even launched a mini radio observatory aboard Odysseus lander, which landed on the lunar surface last month. However, this is a part of the mega plan to build a mega array of radio antennas on the far side of the moon.
Moon Telescope Would Be New Era Of Amazing Space Discoveries
“These things can move much more quickly than if you just rely on NASA or another space agency, a governmental agency, to do it all alone,” Business Insider quoted Jack Burns, an astrophysicist and professor at the University of Colorado Boulder. Burns is leading the radio observatory efforts.
According to Astrophysicist Joseph Silk, the mega telescope on moon would open the door to a new era of amazing space discoveries. For instance, he said, “if you want to discover [alien] life, the way you’re going to do it is on the moon.”
Why To Install A Telescope On The Moon
Well, scientists have good reason to take telescopes out of earth. On Earth, astronomers face various difficulties turning the lenses and antennas toward different galaxies, planets, or black holes. They do not get clear picture or data due to the thick distortions of the atmosphere, squint past the streaks of more and more satellites, and the radio emissions of those satellites.
An illustration of a conceptual radio telescope within a crater on the moon. Vladimir Vustyansky
Even the massive Hubble Space Telescope which is orbiting our planet, isn’t safe from satellite interference. Notably, Only a limited range of radio frequencies pass through Earth’s atmosphere without getting distorted. Earth’s atmospheric garbling create difficulties for telescopes to hear radio emissions from the earliest stages of the universe.
However, on the moon, the atmosphere and the satellites’ interference can be ignored which surely opens a new world of possibilities.
