Astronomers Demand Radio Silence at the Moon's Far Side, But Resistance May Be Futile (gizmodo.com) 18
Gizmodo reports that increased activity on the Moon "may affect the unique radio silence on the lunar far side, an ideal location for radio telescopes to pick up faint signals from the cosmic past."
This week, the International Academy of Astronautics (IAA) held the first Moon Farside Protection Symposium in Italy to advocate for preserving radio silence on the far side of the Moon. The symposium hopes to raise awareness about the threat facing the far side of the Moon and develop approaches to shielding it from artificial radio emissions....
NASA has shown interest in using the lunar radio silence, proposing an ultra-long-wavelength radio telescope inside a crater on the far side of the Moon. The Lunar Crater Radio Telescope is designed to observe the universe at frequencies below 30 megahertz, which are largely unexplored by humans since those signals are reflected by the Earth's ionosphere, according to NASA. At those low frequencies, radio telescopes on the Moon can detect near-Earth objects approaching our planet before other observatories, it can search for signals of alien civilizations, and study organic molecules in interstellar space...
As more missions head towards the Moon, however, that perfect silence is increasingly being compromised. Earlier this week, for example, China launched a satellite to relay communication between ground operations on Earth and an upcoming mission on the far side of the Moon. The satellite, Queqiao-2, is the first of a constellation of satellites that China hopes to deploy by 2040 to communicate with future crewed missions on the Moon and Mars. As part of its Artemis program, NASA is aiming to build the Lunar Gateway, a space station designed to orbit the Moon to support future missions to the lunar surface and Mars. In advance of this, a NASA-funded cubesat, called CAPSTONE, has entered into a unique halo orbit to demonstrate the stability and practicality of this trajectory for future lunar missions... CAPSTONE marks the beginning of something big — establishing a permanent communication link between Earth and lunar assets, and ensuring the steady, uninterrupted flow of data.
NASA and its Chinese counterparts have eerily similar plans for lunar exploration, and the Moon is currently a 'free-for-all' with no regulations set in place as to who can own our dusty orbital companion.
"In other words, things are about to get real loud out there as far as radio transmissions are concerned."
NASA has shown interest in using the lunar radio silence, proposing an ultra-long-wavelength radio telescope inside a crater on the far side of the Moon. The Lunar Crater Radio Telescope is designed to observe the universe at frequencies below 30 megahertz, which are largely unexplored by humans since those signals are reflected by the Earth's ionosphere, according to NASA. At those low frequencies, radio telescopes on the Moon can detect near-Earth objects approaching our planet before other observatories, it can search for signals of alien civilizations, and study organic molecules in interstellar space...
As more missions head towards the Moon, however, that perfect silence is increasingly being compromised. Earlier this week, for example, China launched a satellite to relay communication between ground operations on Earth and an upcoming mission on the far side of the Moon. The satellite, Queqiao-2, is the first of a constellation of satellites that China hopes to deploy by 2040 to communicate with future crewed missions on the Moon and Mars. As part of its Artemis program, NASA is aiming to build the Lunar Gateway, a space station designed to orbit the Moon to support future missions to the lunar surface and Mars. In advance of this, a NASA-funded cubesat, called CAPSTONE, has entered into a unique halo orbit to demonstrate the stability and practicality of this trajectory for future lunar missions... CAPSTONE marks the beginning of something big — establishing a permanent communication link between Earth and lunar assets, and ensuring the steady, uninterrupted flow of data.
NASA and its Chinese counterparts have eerily similar plans for lunar exploration, and the Moon is currently a 'free-for-all' with no regulations set in place as to who can own our dusty orbital companion.
"In other words, things are about to get real loud out there as far as radio transmissions are concerned."
Agreements can be made (Score:5, Interesting)
For instance, maybe laser coms or at least highly directional radio should be considered mandatory to relay from the far side to Earth-facing relays... And even then with shared timetables so interference can be predicted and filtered where possible.
Re: (Score:3)
There is also the issue of the RF noise from anything operating on the surface, Every computer, etc, generates a relatively large amount of RF energy. So them mere fact of buiding a telescope and running it creates it's own noise.
Good with Bi-lateral Silence (Score:1)
It's not hard to see yet another group which lives on subsidies, demanding that everyone else provide even more subsidies and/or conform and obey their scientific experts directives.
There are hundreds of worthy causes today, the US should rank them on order of importance and social benefit per dollar spent both short-term and long-term and commit to funding the top most viable lower cost ones.
The academic community is still living in the 1960s when government spending was always increasing for just about an
Re: (Score:2)
I was also thinking if enough could be done to create a lunar radio quiet zone [wikipedia.org] or do conditions on the moon preclude such a thing?
It also got me curious what the geosynchronous orbit is around the moon and apparently the answer is "it doesn't have one"
https://www.quora.com/Does-the... [quora.com]
Re: (Score:2)
No, with a 1 rev/30 days, it's so far out that you cannot ignore the earth (like is done to first approximation for earth geocentric orbits).
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The moon doesn't have very many stable non-synchronous orbits either. There are a handful (4?) of low orbits that are reasonably stable and high orbits involving the Lagrange points.
Re: Agreements can be made (Score:2)
We only need amateur radio when none of that other shit is transmitting, so no problem if it's got static the rest of the time. Sure it's a bummer, but you've got other ways to communicate while the Internet is working, including Internet repeaters.
I think we need an international treaty (Score:1)
to preserve radio silence around proxima centauri. Never too early to start lawyering away on how to export our unique brand of nimby to whoever is out there beyond the moon.
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Don't give them any ideas. Politicians are clueless I remember some years back a politician was asked "which is further out, the Andromeda galaxy .. or Pluto?" Dude said Pluto. Nowadays I used that question for screening purposes .. a surprising number of people fail it. Even if they get it right, but had to think about it for a few seconds, to me that's the equivalent of saying "Pluto" -- unless their excuse is that they thought it was a trick question off some sort.
Maybe put the telescope at L3. (Score:2)
Radio silence is critically important if we are to (Score:2)
Find the all spark.
Shown interest? (Score:2)
Well, safe to say nothing of value is lost if we continue to develop the moon, if NASA is only in the "shown interest" stage. That's like saying they were planning to build something there a century from now if they can get the funding. No reason to inhibit progress for the perpetual "soon" that never comes.
Maybe we can agree? (Score:1)
I wonder if agreement can be reached to limit RF over a certain power level to a set of frequencies that are not very useful for , so that a band-reject filter can eliminate those frequencies and their first few harmonics.
Lunar Surface Electromagnetic Experiment (LuSEE) (Score:2)
cool (Score:1)
Re: (Score:1)