that is on the hidden side of the Moon

Just as it happens when you want to see a shower of stars or meteorites, to observe the universe well you have to flee from civilization. If you are looking for an elevated place, all the better. That explains why there are large observatories in the Atacama desert in Chile, in the Roque de los Muchachos from La Palma or the Square Kilometer Array in Australia and South Africa: deserts, volcanic peaks or remote plains are ideal candidates. That on Earth.

Astronomer Jack Burns, whose career began in the late 1970s in the Very Large Array of New Mexicohas spent his entire professional life defending that the next big jump is the Moon. Time is proving him right.

The Earth is not enough. Clear skies, a dry atmosphere (humidity distorts signals), and getting away from humanity’s electromagnetic noise are essential to having a good observatory. But as Burns has seen firsthand, even in an environment as privileged as that of the VLA, there are insurmountable limits to knowing more about the origin of the universe for two reasons:

• Earth’s ionosphere blocks much of that low-frequency spectrum.
• There is still electromagnetic pollution from humanity, for example electrical, telecommunications, radar infrastructures… that mask the signal.

The problem of signs of the beginning of the universe. The most abundant element in the universe is neutral hydrogen, but while in the laboratory it emits at 21 centimeters of wavelength, if the signal arrives from the dark ages traveling through the universe, it reaches the Earth stretched to a range that cannot be heard well. From Earth.

These radio signals from the cosmic dark ages, a period of between 200 and 400 million years that It started “only” 380,000 years after the Big Bangare really weak and reach frequencies below 50 MHz (very low), so it is difficult to capture them from Earth.

Hajor. Wikimedia CC BY-SA 3.0

The solution is on the far side of the moon. The far side of the moon is probably one of the quietest places in the inner Solar system as the mass of the satellite serves as a kind of natural shield that blocks terrestrial and solar signals.

When it’s night on the moon (a night that can last up to 14 Earth days), it is possible to achieve almost complete electromagnetic silence: without direct solar radiation and without interference from the Earth. Ideal for listening to the cosmos.

Why is it important. Hearing about the dark cosmic age sounds abstract, but being able to observe them would be useful to better specify the models that explain how the first stars and galaxies were formed, not to mention the advances it would allow in the observation of dark matter, dark energy or gravitational waves. In addition, it opens the doors for the moon to become a permanent scientific platform for humanity.

This is the LuSEE-Night radio telescope. It’s time for presentations: Lunar Surface Electromagnetics Experiment – Night It is the radio telescope designed to take advantage of that silence. It operates in a range from 0.1 to 50 MHz with the goal of mapping the first low-frequency sky and potentially capturing those first signs of the dark ages.

Technically, it had to overcome contradictory demands: it was required to have high sensitivity to detect the weakest signals and, at the same time, high resistance to deal with a hostile lunar environment with large thermal variations. This minimizes its own noise so as not to dirty the listening and with the ability to communicate with the Earth.

A winding path. The program has been full of disappointments: in 2024, the first American lunar landing in 50 years, the Odysseus module, landed poorly and broke a leg. It only had time to transmit two hours of data, enough time to at least confirm that the hardware was working. In March 2025, Firefly’s Blue Ghost 1 achieved the first successful private lunar landing and now LuSEE-Night will travel on its successor, Blue Ghost 2, which will land on the far side of the moon without anyone on Earth being able to see it.

What comes next. If LuSEE-Night is successful, the roadmap is ambitious: develop FarViewa colossal lunar interferometer on a larger scale that would allow the study of the dark ages with a precision hitherto impossible. The project would begin assembly in the 2030s and would have initial funding from NASA.

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Cover | NASA/Firefly Aerospace