Pax Arcana
Those crazy kids at MIT are at it again. First they wanted to strap you to an asteroid. Now they want to put telescopes on the moon.
Not all over the moon, mind you, just on the dark side — which, if I’m remembering my Astronomy 301 seminar correctly, is where most of the cheese is.
Scientists say they can get a better look into deep space from the moon, because frankly telescopes just have a hard time concentrating with all the American Idol and Shakira and whatnot going on down here:
Observations of the cosmic Dark Ages are impossible to make from Earth, Hewitt explains, because of two major sources of interference that obscure these faint low-frequency radio emissions. One is the Earth’s ionosphere, a high-altitude layer of electrically charged gas. The other is all of Earth’s radio and television transmissions, which produce background interference everywhere on the Earth’s surface.
The only place that is totally shielded from both kinds of interference is the far side of the moon, which always faces away from the Earth and therefore is never exposed to terrestrial radio transmissions.
The telescope project will probably cost around $1 billion, and researchers say they won’t really be functional until around 2025. Of course the best part comes later, when whack job conspiracy theorists start going around telling everyone it never happened — only to get punched in the face by old men who were there.
Note to self: Never call Buzz Aldrin a liar
MIT to lead development of new telescopes on moon [MIT News]
