May 19, 2021
The Lunar Crater Radio Telescope has a proposed 1-km diameter (.6 mile), much larger in the moon’s low gravity than any earthly radio telescope. If completed, this telescope will be the largest filled-aperture radio telescope in our solar system. Image via Saptarshi Bandyopadhyay/ NASA.
In late 2020, the beloved Arecibo radio telescope in Puerto Rico collapsed and was decommissioned. It was a dish-type radio telescope, built into a natural depression in the landscape. Now, as the astronomy community mourns Arecibo’s loss, a team of scientists has just cleared another hurdle to building a much-larger radio telescope. In April 2021, NASA’s Innovative Advanced Concepts awarded the Lunar Crater Radio Telescope project $500,000 for further research and development. This telescope, too, is to be built into a natural depression in the landscape, in this case a bowl-shaped crater on the far side of the moon.
The Lunar Crater Radio Telescope is now moving into Phase 2 of development. It'll be built by robots, into a natural bowl-shaped crater on the moon's far side. If completed, it'll be the largest radio telescope in the solar system.
NASA is reaching out
NASA’s planning a piece of science equipment it calls the Lunar Crater Radio Telescope or LCRT. That’s exactly what it sounds like a radio telescope build into a crater, only this one will live on the far side of the Moon. You know, the bit we never get to see from Earth?
So, first of all, it’ll face out into the universe and, secondly, it won’t have to contend with the planet’s atmosphere. Current radio ‘scopes battle with wavelengths longer than ten meters because of the planet’s ionosphere, explains the JPL’s Saptarshi Bandyopadhyay. He added, “[P]revious ideas of building a radio antenna on the Moon have been very resource intensive and complicated, so we were compelled to come up with something different.”
What happened during Dark Ages? Telescope in Moon s crater could look back in time for answers
What happened during Dark Ages? Telescope in Moon s crater could look back in time for answers
The telescope, which is yet to be officially sanctioned by Nasa could transform humanity’s view of the cosmos.
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UPDATED: May 19, 2021 17:42 IST
The telescope, which is yet to be officially sanctioned by Nasa could transform humanity’s view of the cosmos. (Photo: Nasa)
The Hubble telescope that has been a window to the vast cosmos beyond Earth s orbit has proven to be highly instrumental in answering some of the critical questions about the universe from quasars to black holes. However, with the Hubble now ageing, scientists are now working on a new telescope, this one to be placed in a crater on the Moon.
Why NASA is building a gigantic telescope on the far side of the Moon
NASA s Lunar Crater Radio Telescope could help us study the cosmic dark ages Exploring the wonders of the Cosmos, one mystery at a time. Exploring the wonders of the Cosmos, one mystery at a time.
Following the Big Bang, our budding Universe slowly cooled, and the first atoms took shape. Gravity gradually pulled on clumps of hydrogen and helium gas, forming the earliest stars. This era, lasting a few hundred million years prior to the large-scale formation of stars, is called the cosmic dark ages.
The Lunar Crater Radio Telescope (LCRT), an ambitious concept to place a massive radio telescope on the far side of the Moon, would study the Universe during this ancient era in detail for the very first time.