We’ve built telescopes in our backyards and high up in remote mountains, and we’ve even launched telescopes into space. With every advance in our technology we make surprising and surprising new discoveries about the universe. So what should be our next progress in observatories?

According to a new paper on arXiv, the lunar surface could be a good choice. Placing a telescope on the Moon is not a new idea. NASA has already funded a research grant for the Lunar Crater Radio Telescope (LCRT). During the Apollo missions, astronauts placed reflectors on the moon so astronomers could measure the distance to the moon to the nearest millimeter.

In this new article, the authors summarize several known ideas and also introduce a new concept they call the hypertelescope. While radio telescopes like the LCRT on the far side of the Moon are perhaps the most popular proposal, others include the Lunar Life-Finding Telescope at the Poles (LFTALP), which will be a 6.5-meter array of telescopes focused on studying atmospheres. number of exoplanets at transit times. star.

There is also the Lunar Optical UV Explorer (LOUVE), which focuses on bright ultraviolet objects. There are even proposals for a LIGO-like gravitational wave observatory.

The problem with all these proposals is that they require a technical level of construction that would be difficult even on Earth. The idea of ​​building observatories on the Moon with arrays and similar instruments is a great goal, but it is currently far beyond our technical capacity.

Therefore, the authors propose a slightly simpler idea. The primary optical telescope to take advantage of lunar terrain. The power of an optical telescope largely depends on the size of its main mirror and the focal length of the telescope. The focal length can be increased by using more than one mirror on Earth.

A hypertelescope may use a series of mirrors located along the topography of the crater as primary mirrors. The telescope’s detector cluster can be suspended on a cable, similar to how detectors at the Arecibo Observatory are suspended over a mesh dish.

Since the mirrors do not need to be large, they will be much easier to build and the overall shape of the crater will mean less “earthwork” to get them into place. A variation on this idea would be to place mirrors on one side of the crater and devices on the other. This would make it possible to obtain a very long focal length, and the observation range of such a telescope would be limited.

All these ideas are still in their infancy. In addition to their construction, there are also serious problems that need to be overcome. Over time, dust accumulated on the mirrors and needed to be cleaned. Although the Moon has much less seismic activity than Earth, it can still affect the alignment of mirrors and detectors. But one thing is clear: We will return to the Moon, and wherever humans go, they will build telescopes. Establishing a lunar observatory is only a matter of time. Source