Putting An Observatory On The Moon's 'Dark' Side

wytcld writes: "CNN reports astronomers are pushing for a radio telescope on the 'dark side of the moon' (do real astronomers call it the 'dark side,' when it gets plenty of light?). The proposal by Yuki David Takahashi is amazing mostly because a guy just starting work on his Master's is managing major press for it. Still, a nice dream."

The name...

[vandelais]

Instead of say, the Hubble, they should call it "The Floyd"

gravity

[Anonymous Coward]

This will be very interesting since we only see the same side of the moon due to gravity. More interesting would be an observatory headed for a black hole...I'd volunteer.

Unfortunately, congress is pushing back

[ch-chuck]

In particular, scientists involved in the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI) project like the prospects of a lunar listening post. A major nuisance they face as they eavesdrop on the universe is the constant interference of radio emissions from Earth.

I'm sure it's a major nuisance to the Aliens too: "How can we continue with our search for intelligent life with all this crap coming from those idiots on Earth!?!?"

Riiiiight...

[dead_penguin]

"It's like we've always worn red sunglasses. When we take them off, we'll discover red flowers, red apples, red ladybugs, red flames."

Does anyone else think that part of this project has to do with research into "pharmaceuticals" in addition to the astronomy research? Sounds kind of "spacey" to me...

Re:Question...

[aka-ed]

Dear Jared.Slashdot,
I was quite interested to read your recent post to the Slashdot Message Board Community, concerning the difficulties of communicating with a radio telescope placed on the far side of the moon. You indicate that we could only communicate with it "half of the time." Which half do you mean? The half of the time when the moon is in between the earth and the radio-telescope? Or do you mean the other half of the time, when the exact same situation exists?

The moon?

[Steve Cowan]

Doesn't anybody watch Fox?

In order to put install a radio telescope on the moon, we have to put a man there first!

Re:Question...

[AJWM]

The last time I checked, the moon rotated.

Correct. Once per orbit.

If i am incorrect about this, please Xplain why.

Look at it this way -- when was the last time you looked up at the Moon and saw the far side?

Re:If you're a RADIO astronomer, yes...

[Waffle Iron]

I'm not so sure if the moon is the ideal low-noise environment. I seem to recall reading somewhere that just last year they discovered some kind of huge black slab buried on the moon. It was supposedly making very powerful transmissions towards Jupiter or something. That sounds like a big source of potential interference.

Moon Observitory

[Anonymous Coward]

Ricardo Montalban said, "In space it is very cold". I heard him say it in Star Trek so it is true.

Will the cooler temperature in space allow me to overclock my CPUs, thereby increasing the overall speed of my beowulf cluster?

I imagine it will.

Then I can get even more framerates when I play my favoraite Linus game, DOOM.

Re:Communication to the dark side (of the moon)..

[matt-fu]

Alternatively have 2 geostationary sats such that the observatory can transmit to one, and that one transmits to another one it can "see" which has line of sight to earth.

..so one of these dark side sats would be the "master" and one would be the "pupil" then?

:)

Testing your powers of N-Body visualization...

[Tsar]

Imagining a satellite around a moon around a planet around a sun is a little out there.

Tough to imagine, eh? How about visualizing something closer to home--an electron in your wristwatch's second hand.

It's orbiting the nucleus of an iron atom,
which every 60 seconds circles the axis of your wristwatch,
which every 24 hours circles the axis of the Earth,
which every 365.242 days orbits the Sun,
which every 200 million years orbits the center of the Galaxy,
which every 150 billion years or so orbits the center of the Local Group,
which every few trillion years orbits the center of the Virgo supercluster.

I suppose those last two are somewhat optimistic predictions, especially considering that I have no first-hand knowledge of your wristwatch.

Nuisance to aliens?

[wildbill2]

(snort) We've only had 50-75 years of punching out crap (and hell, maybe aliens *like* I Love Lucy). That's hardly enough time for electromagnetic radiation to annoy aliens. By the time they notice us, if anyone does, we'll probably have converted almost entirely to cable or some other futuristic entertainment deployment technology.