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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00:00NASA is hoping to send humans back to the moon in the next couple of years, but now
00:08they have announced what exactly those astronauts will be doing there.
00:11The Artemis 3 mission is set to launch in December 2025, just a couple of years from
00:15now.
00:16And when the international group of astronauts touch down on the lunar surface, they will
00:19also set up a radio telescope on the far side of the moon as well.
00:23A radio telescope way out there would provide an unprecedented and uninhibited view of the
00:28cosmos.
00:29Not all of the radio interference from Earth and having the moon between us and the rest
00:32of the universe will hopefully give us a view of something never before seen by human eyes.
00:36It's often referred to as the Dark Ages of the Universe, or the period of time that
00:40occurred just 380,000 years after the Big Bang.
00:44This is when the first stars and galaxies began to form, and when the universe became
00:48something we might recognize today.
00:50In fact, NASA is launching the Lunar Surface Electromagnetics Experiment Night Radio Astronomy
00:55Project next year as a sort of proof of concept ahead of the Artemis mission.
00:59Astronomers are hoping that this sort of technology on the moon will let us see what's called
01:02the spectral line, which was created when the first hydrogen atoms came into existence.
01:07This is something that is not visible from Earth, due to the refraction of light in our
01:10atmosphere.
01:11But on the moon, that won't be an issue.