[HN Gopher] Building telescopes on the Moon could transform astr...
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Building telescopes on the Moon could transform astronomy
 
Author : CharlesW
Score  : 59 points
Date   : 2023-04-19 21:23 UTC (1 hours ago)
 
web link (theconversation.com)
w3m dump (theconversation.com)
 
| double2helix wrote:
| The catch-22 is the influx of lunar traffic will create some
| noise interference on the "dark side" of the moon. Still less
| than that on earth though.
 
  | jrussino wrote:
  | This was my first thought when reading the article.
  | 
  | > The lunar far side is permanently shielded from the radio
  | signals generated by humans on Earth. During the lunar night,
  | it is also protected from the Sun. These characteristics make
  | it probably the most "radio-quiet" location in the whole solar
  | system as no other planet or moon has a side that permanently
  | faces away from the Earth. It is therefore ideally suited for
  | radio astronomy.
  | 
  | Maybe we need to treat this as a "pristine natural resource"
  | and put some treaties in place now where we agree to limit how
  | much we "pollute" this area with RF signals, before it's too
  | late?
 
    | joering2 wrote:
    | define "too late" ?
 
      | samstave wrote:
      | https://youtu.be/5drjr9PmTMA
 
| rkwasny wrote:
| What? we have a telescope in L2 point(the second Lagrangian
| point)! it is soo much better there compared to the moon
 
  | autokad wrote:
  | if we could manufacture the telescopes on the moon, we could
  | build massive ones (and size matters). And, why not have both?
 
    | post-it wrote:
    | Couldn't we manufacture more massive ones in orbit around the
    | moon, since they won't collapse under their own weight? We'd
    | need extra fuel to get resources or parts off the surface of
    | the moon, but that's nothing in comparison to the fuel needed
    | to get off the Earth.
    | 
    | Edit: I forgot the moon has a much lower gravity than Earth.
    | It might still be worthwhile to build in orbit, but we can
    | build a lot bigger on the moon than on Earth.
 
      | sandworm101 wrote:
      | Moon orbits are very unstable. Maintaining anything so
      | large there for an extended period would be difficult.
 
      | bryanlarsen wrote:
      | It would mass a _lot_ more in orbit, since the moon itself
      | is providing most of the structure for the proposed
      | telescope.
 
| csours wrote:
| No mention of dust. The lunar astronauts complained about the
| stuff. There's some weird stuff due to electrical charges not
| being able to dissipate.
| 
| I do hope we try it though, speaking from my inner 12 year old.
 
  | psychphysic wrote:
  | The charge that causes the issue can also be used to fix it
  | 
  | https://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2006/1...
  | 
  | It would be pretty sweet to have a decent scope on the far side
  | of the moon.
 
| hiccuphippo wrote:
| What are the chances of meteorites being a threat? Without an
| atmosphere it is easier for them to reach the ground and cause
| damage.
 
  | joering2 wrote:
  | As my understanding goes, Moon is very big and meteors are very
  | small and aim/crash rarely. You can look at its surface and
  | assume there is activity all the time but because of lack of
  | atmosphere anything that touches the surface leaves footprints
  | for thousands of years. Armstrong footprint is still there.
 
    | cdot2 wrote:
    | More like millions of years
 
| freeqaz wrote:
| Man, this really excites me! I hadn't even thought about this
| before, but it seems super obvious now. Especially the bit in the
| article about putting a telescope at one of the poles inside of a
| crater (to shield from sunlight).
| 
| I'm surprised this proposal hasn't been tried sooner. Is this
| because the cost per pound to send something into space has
| gotten cheaper? Why now?
 
  | enlyth wrote:
  | Also, Earth's sky will eventually get polluted by things like
  | SpaceX satellites, so this would solve that issue as well.
 
    | Rebelgecko wrote:
    | Once Starlink builds up the capacity around the moon to
    | handle all the new telescopes' data, won't they have the same
    | problem?
 
      | bryanlarsen wrote:
      | We can maintain continuous internet connection from
      | anywhere on the surface of the moon to Earth using 2 lunar
      | satellites. Using more won't provide any advantages until
      | its using a lot of bandwidth.
 
    | oh_sigh wrote:
    | If there were a million satellites(which there won't be), and
    | they averaged 100 square meters each (which they don't), and
    | they were all very close to earth in LEO(like starlink, which
    | they aren't), they would take up 0.0000166% of the night sky.
    | 
    | I think we will be okay.
 
    | BurningFrog wrote:
    | Putting telescopes in higher orbits should handle most of
    | that.
 
| Maursault wrote:
| Discussion began here 9 hours ago:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35627234
| 
| Why is HN taking after reddit so much lately with duplicates?
 
  | dabluecaboose wrote:
  | redditors fleeing the eternal september on their site and
  | unintentionally causing one on HN
 
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