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The impression of the artist led in the UK from the spaceship from the British spaceship, which circle the moon and hears weak radio signals from the early universe. . | Credit: Nicolo Bernardini (SSTL LTD) & Kaan Artuc (University of Cambridge)
A team of scientists conducted in Great Britain develops a miniature spaceship that will circle the moon in order to recognize weak radio signals from the childhood of the universe.
The proposed mission called Cosmocube aims to “listen to these old signals from the other side of the moon. It is aimed at the “cosmic dark age”-a critical but mysterious era, the approximately 50 to 1 billion years after the big bang when the first stars, galaxies and black holes formed in the universe.
“It is unbelievable how far these radio waves have traveled and are now coming up with news about the history of the universe,” said David Bacon, cosmologist at the University of Portsmouth in Great Britain, which is involved in the mission. “The next step is to go to the quieter side of the moon to hear this news.”
The observation of this distant era is notoriously difficult, say astronomers. At that time, the universe was filled with a thick fog of neutral hydrogen gas, which blocked the visible light freely through the room and made the early cosmos opaque.
However, hydrogen, which is the most common element in the universe, emits a characteristic radio signal with a frequency of 1,420 megahertz, which corresponds to a wavelength of about 8.3 inches (21 centimeters). As the first bright objects lit, they transformed the hydrogen around them subtly around them and changed the strength and profile of this signal. The recording of these variations could offer a flawless view of how the first bright objects formed according to the explanation.
While this signal was examined in detail in the nearby universe, it is far more difficult to recognize its much weaker counterpart from the earliest days of the universe. The capture of these old signals requires almost complete radio silence, which is practically impossible to achieve on earth, where electronic devices and atmospheric disorders generate a constant background group.
“It is like trying to hear this whisper while a loud concert is playing next door,” said Eloy de Lera Acedo, Associate Professor of Radio cosmology at the University of Cambridge, which is involved in the Cosmocube mission. “This makes it very difficult to pick up these weak signals from billions of years ago.”
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The Cosmocube mission would use the distance of the moon, which, according to the statement, acts as a natural shield from the earth’s radio emissions. From this unique viewpoint, the probe aims to use a sensitive radiometer that is designed to identify radio signals with a low frequency.
A model of the Cosmocube satellite is subject to thermal vacuum tests in the RAL room facilities. | Credit: Dr. Will Grainger, Ral Space
The mission data could also help to solve the Hubble tension, the long-term puzzles in cosmology, the contradictory measurements of the expansion rate of the universe, which were based on observations of the early universe compared to the local universe.
Laboratory prototypes of the instruments are already undergoing environmental tests. The team plans to start Cosmocube in the next four to five years in order to reach the lunar orbit by the end of the decade, the team said in the explanation.
