The proposed telescope would be a 1km diameter wire mesh that can look into the cosmos without being hindered by Earth's atmosphere.
NASA is funding an early-stage proposal to build a lunar mesh telescope inside a crater on the moon's far side. Reporting it is the Vice site, which cites sources from the American Space Agency.
This “dark side” is the face of the moon that is permanently positioned away from Earth, and as such offers a rare view of the cosmos. A view unhindered by radio interference from humans and the dense atmosphere of our planet.
Lunar crater radio telescope
The idea for this telescope came from Saptarshi Bandyopadhyay, robotics technologist at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory. In his proposal it is already possible to read the name coined for the project: "Lunar crater radio telescope". According to Bandyopadhyay, such a telescope would have enormous advantages.
NASA's Innovative Advanced Concepts Program awards $125.000 for a Phase 1 study to understand the feasibility of a “lunar” telescope.
The telescope (designed as a wire mesh) would be deployed in a crater 3 to 5 kilometers wide on the hidden side of the moon.
According to the proposal, the 1 km diameter metal mesh telescope would be placed on the crater by NASA's DuAxel Rovers.
Once built, the “lunar crater radio telescope” would be the largest full-aperture radio telescope in the solar system, Bandyopadhyay wrote.
A full aperture radio telescope is a telescope that uses a single dish to collect data rather than many dishes, according to Vice.
Since this telescope would be on the far side of the moon, it would avoid radio interference from Earth, satellites and even the sun. It would also allow us to look out into the cosmos without the veil of Earth's atmosphere.
How does the lunar telescope work?
The atmosphere reflects wavelengths of low-frequency light greater than 10 meters, essentially blocking them from reaching ground-based telescopes.
