The FARSIDE telescope and its attendant rovers would reach the moon using Blue Origin’s Blue Moon lander. (Credit: Courtesy Caltech/JPL)

A Telescope On The Moon Could Illuminate The Dark Ages Of The Universe

May 15, 2021

From Discover: Some 13.8 billion years ago, our universe burst into being. In a fraction of a second, it ballooned from subatomic to the size of a grapefruit. And as the cosmos grew and grew, it also cooled, until the building blocks of matter — subatomic particles called quarks and...

Artist illustration of DAPPER mission and the Moon

Exploring the far side of the Moon and beyond with NESS

April 23, 2021

From Innovation News Network: NASA has created the Solar System Exploration Research Virtual Institute (SSERVI), bringing together teams of researchers who are interested in the Moon, asteroids, and the moons of Mars, airless bodies in Earth’s neighbourhood. Most of the teams involved in SSERVI are therefore interested in areas such...

Photo of the Moon from Getty images

3 questions after the discovery of water molecules on the sunlit moon

Oct. 30, 2020

From PBS News Hour: In 2018, astronomers directly confirmed for the first time that water, in the form of ice, is on the moon’s surface. Aptly named water ice resides in the coldest, darkest parts of our planet’s satellite, like the shadow-shrouded craters that dot its polar regions, the deepest...

Artist illustration of the Dark Ages Polarimetry Pathfinder (DAPPER), which will look for faint radio signals from the early universe while operating in a low lunar orbit. Its specialized radio receiver and high-frequency antenna are currently being developed by NRAO. Credit: NRAO/AUI/NSF, Sophia Dagnello

A Roadmap for Science on the Moon

Sept. 30, 2020

From CU Boulder Today: Scientists at CU Boulder have laid out a roadmap for a decade of scientific research at the moon. Teams from the university will participate in four upcoming or proposed space missions that seek to use the moon as a unique laboratory for peering back to the...

An illustration of the Dark Ages Polarimeter Pathfinder, or Dapper, spacecraft orbiting past the far side of the moon.

NASA patented a faster, cheaper route to the moon. The first spacecraft to use it could make Nobel Prize-winning discoveries about the universe.

Sept. 2, 2020

From Business Insider: The moon is both seductively close to Earth and cosmically far away: Decades after the end of the space race, it remains extraordinarily expensive and difficult to actually get there. The journey just got a bit easier, however, thanks to a freshly published NASA invention. The agency's...

DAPPER Mission concept in orbit around Moon

Under a DAPPER Moon: NASA Eyes Wild Radio Science Projects on the Lunar Farside

Dec. 23, 2019

From Space.com: NASA's quest to return humans to the moon could boost a field of research that might not seem particularly lunar in nature: cosmology. But the far side of the moon could be a powerful place to answer some of the most compelling questions about the universe — and...

NASA’s Volatiles Investigating Polar Exploration Rover, or VIPER, is a mobile robot that will roam around the Moon’s south pole looking for water ice.

New VIPER Lunar Rover to Map Water Ice on the Moon

Oct. 25, 2019

From NASA.gov: NASA is sending a mobile robot to the South Pole of the Moon to get a close-up view of the location and concentration of water ice in the region and for the first time ever, actually sample the water ice at the same pole where the first woman...

University of Colorado Boulder director of NASA NLSI Lunar University Network for Astrophysics Research Jack Burns stands for a portrait at the Fiske Planetarium in Boulder

Robots to install telescopes to peer into cosmos from the moon

July 15, 2019

From Reuters Science News: BOULDER, Colo. (Reuters) - As the United States races to put humans back on the moon for the first time in 50 years, a NASA-funded lab in Colorado aims to send robots there to deploy telescopes that will look far into our galaxy, remotely operated by...

Elizabeth Rayne

NASA Thinks We Could Turn the Moon into a Space Water Machine

Feb. 25, 2019

From SYFY Wire: The moon may look like a vast extraterrestrial desert, but on the molecular level, it has the potential to quench an astronaut’s thirst. NASA scientists have discovered how future moonwalkers can use lunar chemistry to their advantage when it comes to getting a water refill. A study...

NASA Selects Experiments for Possible Lunar Flights in 2019 - photo of the Moon

NASA Selects Experiments for Possible Lunar Flights in 2019

Feb. 21, 2019

From NASA: NASA has selected 12 science and technology demonstration payloads to fly to the Moon as early as the end of this year, dependent upon the availability of commercial landers. These selections represent an early step toward the agency’s long-term scientific study and human exploration of the Moon and,...

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