This article has been reviewed according to Science X's editorial process and policies. Editors have highlighted the following attributes while ensuring the content's credibility: Remember the "Wow!" signal? That high-energy radio signature occurred in 1977, when Earth was much "quieter" in the radio band.
If it happened today, it probably wouldn't even move the needle on the background noise of human radio chatter. Signals from satellites, radar and other human technology have crowded out extraterrestrial radio signals, limiting our ability to monitor the heavens for signals like the still-unexplained one received in 1977. What's more, the ionosphere partially blocks lower-frequency radio signals, making them even harder to detect from the ground.
So, for a long time, scientists and engineers have proposed putting a radio telescope on one of the last spots in the solar system that is safe from our ever-growing sphere of radio influence—the far side of the moon. A new paper, available as a preprint on arXiv from lead author David DeBoer of the University of Oxford and his co-authors, lays out a plan to do just that—and stresses that we need to do it before even that last safe haven is gone for good. By 2030, a growing fleet of orbiters and landers will introduce permanent radio-frequency interference (RFI) to the far side of the moon.
Mission planners know this, but ignoring an entire hemisphere of our nearest neighbor—especially one as scientifically interesting as the lunar far side—isn't in the nature of science. So, to put it simply, we have a limited amount of time to put a lunar telescope there if we don't want it to run into the same interference problem as other telescopes on Earth and in space. Enter the Lunar Farside Transients and Technology Telescope (LFT3).
This proposed mission would deploy a sophisticated radio antenna to the far side of the moon by the end of the decade—and plans to do it for only $150 million by using NASA's Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) program. The mission itself would operate across the HF, VHF and UHF frequency bands while scanning the deep cosmos for around 20 weeks. Over that time, it will have to withstand the extreme temperature fluctuations of the lunar day-night cycle—ranging from 120°C (248°F) during the day to -130°C (-202°F) at night.
Engineering for those environments is still within our capabilities, so the plan would be to use the radio telescope to monitor for three separate signals. Technosignatures—potentially including the "Wow!" signal—lead the way, with the mission supported by the Breakthrough Listen initiative, whose primary goal is to listen to the cosmos for hints of alien activity. A second goal is to detect auroras around exoplanets, which can create radio signals and might also indicate habitability.
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