{"id":479957,"date":"2026-06-06T22:33:13","date_gmt":"2026-06-06T22:33:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/479957\/"},"modified":"2026-06-06T22:33:13","modified_gmt":"2026-06-06T22:33:13","slug":"new-x-ray-telescope-can-tell-us-exactly-whats-on-the-moon","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/479957\/","title":{"rendered":"New X-ray telescope can tell us exactly what\u2019s on the moon"},"content":{"rendered":"

NASA might be planning to bring humans back to the moon soon<\/a>, but a newly developed telescope concept should be able to tell us the chemical makeup of the moon\u2019s surface as we sit here on Earth. <\/p>\n

According to a press release<\/a> from Tokyo Metropolitan University shared by the American Association for the Advancement of Science\u2019s EurekAlert, researchers at the school have found that a newly developed, compact X-ray telescope could be used to map the chemical composition of the entire moon’s surface from a perch on a satellite. It said this is a \u201cvital breakthrough for understanding its geological evolution.\u201d<\/p>\n

Their research on the subject was recently published in the Earth, Planets and Space journal<\/a>. <\/p>\n

\u201cDetailed modeling of the detector and a realistic satellite mission show that two years would be enough to map five key elements, while an array of five-by-five detectors could improve resolution and get results faster,\u201d said the press release of the telescope\u2019s capabilities. <\/p>\n

Even if astronauts and robots could collect samples from the moon for researchers to study on Earth, the TMU team noted that samples can not be collected from everywhere on the lunar surface. It\u2019s one of the reasons why the complete geochemistry of the moon, a rocky natural satellite that orbits our planet. <\/p>\n

\u201cScientists use a technology known as X-ray fluorescence imaging, where detectors directed at the Moon are used to pick up X-rays released by specific elements when they are hit by solar rays,\u201d to learn more about it without getting into a spaceship. Observations from the Apollo and Chandrayaan missions have also helped make partial lunar maps. <\/p>\n

Still, there is no comprehensive map of the object we can see nightly. There are several challenges researchers face when collecting data, from a lack of sufficient illumination from solar rays to technical issues. <\/p>\n

\u201cTo overcome these challenges, a team led by Airi Toida and Prof. Yuichiro Ezoe at Tokyo Metropolitan University proposes the use of a compact X-ray telescope which could be mounted on a satellite mission around the Moon,\u201d the press release explained. \u201cA telescope would enable wide area observation of the lunar surface during powerful solar flares. While conventional X-ray telescopes are prohibitively heavy and large, the team\u2019s newly designed compact unit, intended for observations of the Earth\u2019s magnetosphere, weighs in at less than ten kilograms and might be easily deployed as part of long-term satellite observation.\u201d <\/p>\n

So far, the detector has been tested under \u201csignificantly more severe radiation environments than lunar orbit, realizing robust, wide-area, high resolution imaging of the lunar surface over extended mission durations,\u201d the press release added. <\/p>\n

Once they developed the telescope specifications, they incorporated them into a numerical simulation to determine whether a mission to map the lunar surface would be successful. They believe they can map the moon for five elements (oxygen, iron, magnesium, aluminum, silicon) in a little over two years with a grid size of 70 x 70 kilometers. <\/p>\n

That means the telescope unit \u201cis so compact that it is feasible to have a five-by-five array of them on a single satellite,\u201d the press release said. \u201cThe team\u2019s simulations also revealed that this 25-telescope system might reduce the mission time down to a year, with a map of sodium as well as two years, both with a grid size of 30 x 30 kilometers,\u201d it added. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"NASA might be planning to bring humans back to the moon soon, but a newly developed telescope concept…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":479958,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[222527,85,46,141],"class_list":["post-479957","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-science","tag-audacy-news","tag-il","tag-israel","tag-science"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/479957","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=479957"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/479957\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/479958"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=479957"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=479957"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=479957"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}