Space scientists are eager to protect the possibility of doing astronomy from the moon.
Plans are in the works to deploy astronomical hardware on the lunar landscape, such as super-cooled infrared telescopes, an array of gravitational wave detectors, large Arecibo-style radio telescopes, and even peek-a-boo instruments tuned to look for evidence of aliens "out there."
Yes, the future of lunar astronomy beckons. But some scientists say there is an urgent need to protect astronomical equipment on the moon from interference caused by other planned activities on the moon so that they can carry out their mission of exploring the surrounding universe.
To this end, ongoing efforts are being made to develop and develop policies in collaboration with the United Nations, in the hope of promoting international support for such protection.
Related: Gravitational wave detectors on the moon may be more sensitive than those on Earth
Global agreements
This action plan is led by the International Astronomical Union (IAU). The IAU brings together more than 12,000 active professional astronomers from more than 100 countries around the world.
Richard Green is chairman of the IAU group specifically concerned with the issues surrounding staging astronomy from the moon. He is also associate director of government relations at Steward Observatory, run by the University of Arizona in Tucson.
The IAU working group aims to work with a number of other non-governmental organizations to protect the possibility of astronomy from the moon, Green tells Space.com.
A number of participants in the IAU working group are spectrum managers of radio observatories, strongly associated with the International Telecommunications Union (ITU) and the ITU's World Radiocommunication Conference, a treaty-level forum to review and revise, as necessary, radio regulations and global agreements . regarding the use of the radio frequency spectrum and geostationary satellite and non-geostationary satellite orbits.
The working group members want to maximize the range of protected frequencies, "including the very low frequencies needed to study the early universe and auroral emissions from planets," says Green.
Equal access
The other approach, Green says, is for protecting sites on the moon that might be suitable for cooled infrared telescopes or gravitational wave detector arrays.
"We have a common goal with those who want to protect historic heritage and even with those who want special sites for water or mineral extraction," says Green. "We envision the United Nations Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space as the venue where a process can be developed to claim an area for protection and resolve competing claims."
The IAU Astronomy from the Moon working group has space law and policy experts who can provide a strong foundation for that approach, Green says.
"The main goal, of course, is to make astronomical observations that can be uniquely made from the moon," Green explains. The working group uses the expertise of principal investigators of lunar missions or mission concepts.
Doing so, Green says, can involve the astronomical community in prioritizing sites of extreme scientific importance and address issues of doing science in an environment for which "equitable access" is enshrined in the spirit of the United Nations Outer Space Treaty from 1967.
Clearly required
Positively endorsing the IAU initiative is Ian Crawford, professor of planetary sciences and astrobiology at Birkbeck College in London.
"My own view is that a subset of lunar locations, for example specific polar craters and significant far-side locations, should be designated as 'Sites of Special Scientific Importance' and protected as such, Crawford told Space.com.
A possible model, Crawford suggests, could be the Antarctic Specially Protected Areas (ASPAs), as defined in Annex V of the Environmental Protocol to the Antarctic Treaty.
"In any case, international coordination is clearly required, so United Nations involvement seems entirely appropriate," Crawford said.
Private partnerships
NASA is working with several U.S. companies to bring science and technology to the lunar surface through the Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) initiative.
Given the increase in future CLPS-based robotic lunar exploration, we're about to see the first NASA-funded science payloads land there in more than 51 years - since Apollo 17's human moon landing in December 1972, says Jack Burns, professor emeritus in the moon landing. the Department of Astrophysical and Planetary Sciences at the University of Colorado, Boulder.
One payload, for which Burns is a co-investigator, is called the Radio Wave Observations on the Lunar Surface of the photoElectron Sheath (ROLSES). If successful, it would be the first radio telescope on the moon, located at the moon's south pole. ROLSES will be deployed there in February via the IM-1 mission of the Intuitive Machines Nova-C lunar lander under the CLPS partnership.
This will be followed in two years by the Lunar Surface Electromagnetics Experiment-Night, or LuSEE-Night, which will fly in 2026 aboard the Firefly Aerospace Blue Ghost Mission-2 lander. This venture is also part of the CLPS venture and Burns is a science team member of the LUNAR far side experiment.
LuSee-Night is a radio telescope that will look into the never-before-seen dark ages of the early universe - a time before the birth of the first stars.
Scientific fact
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With this potential and promising emergence of radio astronomy from the Moon, Burns says it is essential that we now develop international agreements to protect the far side of the Moon for radio astronomy, as it is the only truly radio-quiet place in the Sun's interior. system."
Burns emphasizes that radio observations from the moon are no longer science fiction, but science fact.
"We are entering a new era of scientific exploration from our nearest neighbor in space," says Burns.