Astronomers Demand Radio Silence at the Moon's Far Side, But Resistance May Be Futile

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."

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