![]() ![]() Using the redshifted 21-cm hyperfine line of neutral hydrogen which fills the early Universe, these observations are enabled by the radio-quiet, nearly ionosphere-free, and environmentally stable lunar far side. LuSEE-Nite will operate at night for about two years and will perform the first 21-cm cosmological observations from the lunar surface, opening one of the last windows to the early Universe - the Dark Ages and Cosmic Dawn. ROLSES and LuSEE, operating at 0.1-50 MHz, will investigate the plasma environment and measure the fidelity of radio spectra on the surface. Professor Burns will discuss CLPS landers that will deliver three radio science experiments, ROLSES (Radio-wave Observations at the Lunar Surface of the Electron Sheath) to the south pole in 2023, and two LuSEE (Lunar Surface Electromagnetics Experiment) payloads to the far side in 2024/25. He is also an inventor on four patents for single crystal growth technology.Įxploration of the low radio frequency Universe from the Moon will soon begin with landed payload missions facilitated by NASA’s Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) program. As an associate fellow of the American Institute for Aeronautics and Astronautics, Joel was awarded the US Government’s Presidential Rank of Meritorious Senior Executive in 2009. Joel received his BS and MS in Mechanical Engineering, and PhD in Materials Science and Engineering, from Worcester Polytechnic Institute. He has also previously worked at NASA Headquarters in human spaceflight, and at both the Ames Research Center in California and Marshall Space Flight Center in Alabama, where he worked on programs as varied as microgravity research, the space shuttle and SOFIA. Kearns served as the director of Facilities, Test and Manufacturing at NASA’s Glenn Research Center (GRC) in Cleveland, where he led efforts encompassing facilities infrastructure, aerospace testing, flight research aircraft, and on-site manufacturing and environmental management.ĭr Kearns also served as the deputy director of GRC’s Space Flight Systems Directorate, providing executive direction of projects assigned to Glenn in human exploration and operations, space science and space technology. Prior to his appointment as the Deputy Associate Administrator for Exploration, Dr. Dr Kearns manages the Lunar Discovery and Exploration Program (LDEP) and the Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) initiatives. Speakersĭr Joel Kearns is the Deputy Associate Administrator for Exploration in the Science Mission Directorate at NASA Headquarters. Moreover, the Moon exhibits geological processes able to bury, and thus both preserve and ‘time-stamp’, these records, although gaining access to them is likely to require a significant scientific infrastructure on the lunar surface. Owing to the Moon’s relatively low level of geological activity, absence of an atmosphere, and, for much of its history, lack of a magnetic field, the lunar surface is ideally suited to collect these astronomical records. The lunar surface may also have accreted material from the local interstellar medium, including supernova ejecta and material from interstellar clouds encountered by the Solar System in the past. These include solar wind particles implanted in the lunar regolith, and thus a record of the past evolution of the Sun, and cosmogenic products of galactic cosmic rays interacting with the surface, and thus a record of the galactic environment of the Solar System. The lunar surface has been exposed to the space environment for billions of years and during this time has accumulated records of a wide range of astrophysical phenomena. After introducing the conceptual design, I shall also discuss the progress in solving the key technological problems, such as image synthesis from the lunar orbit interferometry, precise global spectrum measurement, and the various science cases enabled by such observations. I shall present the Discovering Sky at the Longest wavelength (DSL) project, also known as Hongmeng Project, which aims to unveil the sky at low frequency and probe the Cosmic Dawn and Dark Ages by using an array of microsatellites on lunar orbit. In fact, the radio band below 30 MHz is the last largely unexplored part of the electromagnetic spectrum. However, observing the Dark Age is extremely difficult, not only because there is huge foreground radiation, but because the ionosphere of Earth absorbs and distorts the low frequency radio signal. The 21-cm line of the neutral hydrogen provides a unique probe to the Dark Ages and Cosmic Dawn. ![]() After the Big Bang, the Universe entered the so-called Dark Ages, during which structures grew until the first generation of stars, galaxies and black holes formed. ![]()
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