00:00NASA is hoping to send humans back to the moon in the next couple of years, but now
00:08they have announced what exactly those astronauts will be doing there.
00:11The Artemis 3 mission is set to launch in December 2025, just a couple of years from
00:15now.
00:16And when the international group of astronauts touch down on the lunar surface, they will
00:19also set up a radio telescope on the far side of the moon as well.
00:23A radio telescope way out there would provide an unprecedented and uninhibited view of the
00:28cosmos.
00:29Not all of the radio interference from Earth and having the moon between us and the rest
00:32of the universe will hopefully give us a view of something never before seen by human eyes.
00:36It's often referred to as the Dark Ages of the Universe, or the period of time that
00:40occurred just 380,000 years after the Big Bang.
00:44This is when the first stars and galaxies began to form, and when the universe became
00:48something we might recognize today.
00:50In fact, NASA is launching the Lunar Surface Electromagnetics Experiment Night Radio Astronomy
00:55Project next year as a sort of proof of concept ahead of the Artemis mission.
00:59Astronomers are hoping that this sort of technology on the moon will let us see what's called
01:02the spectral line, which was created when the first hydrogen atoms came into existence.
01:07This is something that is not visible from Earth, due to the refraction of light in our
01:10atmosphere.
01:11But on the moon, that won't be an issue.
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