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This is the Giordano Bruno crater on the opposite side of the moon. A crater would be a privileged place to build a lunar telescope.
NASA / Goddard / Arizona State University
NASA is very retarded James Webb space telescope will be able to look deep into the past, illuminating the birth of the first galaxies in the universe. But some astronomers want to go even further back to investigate the very first stars. A radical concept for a lunar telescope could lead us there.
A team of astronomers from the University of Texas at Austin revisited a concept for a liquid mirror telescope on the moon that was originally launched over a decade ago but was shelved by NASA. The researchers will publish a new paper on the idea in an upcoming issue of The Astrophysical Journal.
Astronomers theorized that the very first stars formed 13 billion years ago, before galaxies joined. “This first light moment is beyond the capabilities of current or near-future telescopes. It is therefore important to think about the ‘definitive’ telescope, capable of directly observing those elusive first stars at the edge of time,” said co-author Volker Bromm in a statement from the McDonald Observatory on Monday.
The lunar telescope would be unusual, discontinuing the use of solid mirrors as we see with James Webb. “The telescope mirror would be a rotating tank of liquid, topped with a metallic – and therefore reflective – liquid,” the observatory said. Mercury is an example of a metal that works for this application.
This illustration shows what a liquid mirror telescope might look like on the moon.
Roger Angel et al./Univ. of Arizona
The mirror is supposed to be 330 feet (100 meters) in diameter and could be built in a lunar crater on one of the moon’s poles. It could work with solar energy.
A liquid-based telescope would be easier to transport to the moon than one made from more traditional materials. Its size and location would make it incredibly powerful.
In line with some fun naming conventions of ground-based telescopes (check the Very large array in the United States and the Very Large Telescope in Chile), the lunar observatory would be called “Ultimately Large Telescope”.
This isn’t the only lunar telescope concept scientists are studying. NASA is funding research on a radio telescope idea which would turn a lunar crater into a plate. This would require the use of robots to deploy a wire mesh over a crater.
The first stars are the latest origin story.
“The emergence of the first stars marks a crucial transition in the history of the universe,” said Bromm, “as the primordial conditions established by the Big Bang gave way to ever-increasing cosmic complexity, ultimately bringing life to the planets, the life, and intelligent beings like us “.
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