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Just to be clear here because all the press releases are intentionally ambiguous about it: the only serious radio astronomy instruments are the Netherlands-Chin
by superkuh 8y ago
Just to be clear here because all the press releases are intentionally ambiguous about it: the only serious radio astronomy instruments are the Netherlands-China Low Frequency Explorer (NCLE) package on the relay sat in the L2 halo orbit always in line of sight of Earth. Not the lander, not the rover. The relay sat there is the step towards lunar far side radio astronomy but so far that is not actually going on.
It's a cool instrument in that it's antenna are stored as a flat roll but extend out as hollow, rigid tubes.
- dane-pgp 8y agoThe article says: "Harvard University astronomer Avi Loeb noted, however, that the relay satellite needed to send back information from the far side also contaminates the sky." Does that mean the international community needs to agree a protocol to establish periods of radio silence for objects on the far side of the moon, and for lunar orbiting satellites, so as not to interfere with future radio astronomy instruments?
- superkuh 8y agoI don't think it is that serious yet but hopefully in time we will need to create ITU region 4, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ITU_Region https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ITU_Region . The link back to Earth is relatively narrow beam width and it's doubtful a simple dish/feed setup has significant sidebands and even then at only a couple frequencies (probably ~7-8 GHz and ~2 GHz).