\u201cThis Lunar Crater Radio Telescope (LCRT), with 1km diameter, will be the largest filled-aperture radio telescope in the Solar System! LCRT could enable tremendous scientific discoveries in the field of cosmology by observing the early universe in the 10-50m wavelength band.\u201d<\/p>\n
Everything would be built by robots, since sending humans for construction would be far more complex. According to Live Science<\/a>, teams at NASA\u2019s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) are already working on a 200:1 scale prototype that will be tested in California.<\/p>\n So far, the project has gone through early funding stages with NASA\u2019s Institute for Advanced Concepts. It received $125,000 in phase I and $500,000 in phase II. The next step is phase III, which could turn the concept into a full mission.<\/p>\n Escaping The Noise From Earth And Its Satellites<\/p>\n The far side of the Moon is one of the quietest places for radio signals anywhere near Earth. It blocks signals coming from our planet, including interference from satellites and even some solar noise. That is becoming a bigger deal every year. Satellite constellations like SpaceX\u2019s Starlink<\/a> are expanding fast. According to astronomers cited by the same source, these satellites can leak radiation that interferes with radio telescopes. <\/p>\n \u201cIt would mean that we are artificially closing \u2018windows\u2019 to observe our universe,\u201d\u00a0said Federico Di Vruno<\/a>, from the Square Kilometer Array Observatory.<\/p>\n Even then, one telescope <\/a>would not replace everything we have on Earth. It would mainly protect access to certain signals that might otherwise disappear.<\/p>\n Picking Up Signals We Cannot Detect On Earth<\/p>\n One of the main reasons scientists are excited about LCRT is that it could detect ultra-long wavelength signals, meaning anything longer than 10 meters. These signals are mostly blocked by Earth\u2019s atmosphere, so they are very hard to study from the ground. On the Moon, that limitation disappears. These wavelengths are important for studying the cosmic dark ages, the time before the first stars formed. Researcher Gaurangi Gupta<\/a> explained that: <\/p>\n \u201cDuring this phase, the universe primarily consisted of neutral hydrogen, photons and\u00a0dark matter, thus it serves as an excellent laboratory for testing our understanding of\u00a0cosmology.\u201d Gupta added, \u201cObservations of the dark ages have the potential to revolutionize physics and cosmology by improving our understanding of fundamental\u00a0particle physics, dark matter,\u00a0dark energy\u00a0and cosmic inflation.\u201d<\/p>\n There have already been some early tests. In 2024, NASA sent the ROLSES-1 <\/a>instrument to the Moon on the Odysseus lander<\/a>. It did collect data, but since it was facing Earth, most of what it picked up came from our own planet. According to the same source, that result showed why the far side is so important. More missions are on the way, including Firefly Aerospace\u2019s Blue Ghost II<\/a>, which will carry another radio experiment.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"NASA is seriously looking at building a huge radio telescope on the far side of the Moon. The…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":578543,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[48],"tags":[79,193],"class_list":["post-578542","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-space","tag-science","tag-space"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/578542","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=578542"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/578542\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/578543"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=578542"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=578542"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=578542"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"Operational](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/Operational-concept-for-constructing-the-LCRT.jpg.webp.webp\")
Operational concept for constructing the LCRT. Credit: \u00a0Saptarshi Bandyopadhyay<\/p>\n![\"The](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/The-LCRT-will-be-fully-protected-from-interference-caused-by-satellites-orbiting-Earth-thanks-to-its.webp\")
The LCRT will be fully protected from interference caused by satellites orbiting Earth thanks to its position on the Moon\u2019s far side. Credit: NASA\/Vladimir Vustyansky<\/p>\n