NASA is hoping to send humans back to the Moon in the next couple of years, but now they have announced what exactly those astronauts will be doing there. The Artemis III mission is set to launch in December 2025, just a couple of years from now. And when they arrive, they will also set up a radio telescope on the far side of the Moon.
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00:00 NASA is hoping to send humans back to the moon in the next couple of years, but now
00:08 they have announced what exactly those astronauts will be doing there.
00:11 The Artemis 3 mission is set to launch in December 2025, just a couple of years from
00:15 now, and when the international group of astronauts touch down on the lunar surface, they will
00:19 also set up a radio telescope on the far side of the moon as well.
00:23 A radio telescope way out there would provide an unprecedented and uninhibited view of the
00:28 cosmos.
00:29 Not all of the radio interference from Earth and having the moon between us and the rest
00:32 of the universe will hopefully give us a view of something never before seen by human eyes.
00:36 It's often referred to as the dark ages of the universe, or the period of time that occurred
00:40 just 380,000 years after the big bang.
00:44 This is when the first stars and galaxies began to form, and when the universe became
00:48 something we might recognize today.
00:50 In fact, NASA is launching the Lunar Surface Electromagnetics Experiment/Night Radio Astronomy
00:54 Project next year as a sort of proof of concept ahead of the Artemis mission.
00:59 Astronomers are hoping that this sort of technology on the moon will let us see what's called
01:02 the spectral line, which was created when the first hydrogen atoms came into existence.
01:07 This is something that is not visible from Earth due to the refraction of light in our
01:10 atmosphere, but on the moon, that won't be an issue.
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