{"id":214258,"date":"2025-05-18T13:06:11","date_gmt":"2025-05-18T18:06:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2025\/05\/a-lunar-telescope-that-could-explore-the-cosmic-dark-ages"},"modified":"2025-05-18T13:06:11","modified_gmt":"2025-05-18T18:06:11","slug":"a-lunar-telescope-that-could-explore-the-cosmic-dark-ages","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2025\/05\/a-lunar-telescope-that-could-explore-the-cosmic-dark-ages","title":{"rendered":"A Lunar Telescope that Could Explore the Cosmic Dark Ages"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a class=\"aligncenter blog-photo\" href=\"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog.images\/a-lunar-telescope-that-could-explore-the-cosmic-dark-ages2.jpg\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Multiple space agencies will send missions to the Moon this decade and the next, with plans to establish infrastructure that will allow for many returns. This includes NASA\u2019s <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nasa.gov\/mission\/gateway\/\">Lunar Gateway<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nasa.gov\/blogs\/artemis\/2020\/10\/28\/lunar-living-nasas-artemis-base-camp-concept\/\">Artemis Base Camp<\/a>, the Chinese-Roscosmos <a href=\"https:\/\/www.unoosa.org\/documents\/pdf\/copuos\/2023\/TPs\/ILRS_presentation20230529_.pdf\">International Lunar Research Station<\/a> (ILRS), and the ESA\u2019s <a href=\"https:\/\/www.som.com\/research\/moon-village\/\">Moon Village<\/a>. With so many space agencies and commercial space companies focused on lunar exploration, there are also multiple plans for establishing research facilities and scientific experiments.<\/p>\n<p>In particular, NASA, China, and the ESA have proposed creating radio astronomy experiments that would operate on the far side of the Moon. In a recent paper, an international team of European astronomers proposed an ultra-long wavelength radio interferometer that could examine the cosmological periods known as the Cosmic Dark Ages and Cosmic Dawn. Known as the <a href=\"https:\/\/arxiv.org\/pdf\/2504.03418\">Dark Ages Explorer<\/a> (DEX), this telescope could provide fresh insights into one of the least understood periods in the history of the Universe.<\/p>\n<p>The study was led by <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ru.nl\/en\/people\/brinkerink-c\">Christiaan Brinkerink<\/a>, a Scientific Engineer with the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ru.nl\/en\/externals\/services\/radboud-radio-lab\">Radboud Radio Lab<\/a> (RRL) at Radboud University Nijmegen. He was joined by researchers from the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.astron.nl\/\">Netherlands Institute for Radio Astronomy<\/a> (ASTRON), the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.tue.nl\/en\/\">Eindhoven University of Technology<\/a>, the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.tudelft.nl\/en\/\">Delft University of Technology<\/a> (TU Delft), the <a href=\"https:\/\/lira.observatoiredeparis.psl.eu\/\">Laboratory for Instrumentation and Research in Astrophysics<\/a> (LIRA), the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.rug.nl\/research\/kapteyn\/?lang=en\">Kapteyn Astronomical Institute<\/a>, the <a href=\"https:\/\/local.strw.leidenuniv.nl\/\">Leiden Observatory<\/a>, the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ast.cam.ac.uk\/\">Cambrige Institute of Astronomy<\/a>, the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.kicc.cam.ac.uk\/\">Kavli Institute for Cosmology<\/a>, the <a href=\"https:\/\/research-and-innovation.ec.europa.eu\/strategy\/strategy-research-and-innovation\/our-digital-future\/european-research-infrastructures\/eric_en\">European Research Infrastructure Consortium<\/a> (ERIC), and the ESA\u2019s <a href=\"https:\/\/www.esa.int\/About_Us\/ESTEC\/European_Space_Research_and_Technology_Centre_ESTEC2\">European Space Research and Technology Center<\/a> (ESTEC).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Multiple space agencies will send missions to the Moon this decade and the next, with plans to establish infrastructure that will allow for many returns. This includes NASA\u2019s Lunar Gateway and Artemis Base Camp, the Chinese-Roscosmos International Lunar Research Station (ILRS), and the ESA\u2019s Moon Village. With so many space agencies and commercial space companies [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":396,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33,219],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-214258","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-cosmology","category-physics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/214258","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/396"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=214258"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/214258\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=214258"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=214258"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=214258"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}