Simulation: Radio telescopes on the moon could solve the mystery of dark matter
After the Big Bang, dark matter clumped together, traces of which are said to exist. Because they cannot be detected from Earth, there is a suggestion.
The far side of the moon in front of the day side of the earth
(Image: NASA/EPIC)
A radio telescope on the moon should be able to detect the traces of dense clumps of dark matter that filled the cosmos after the Big Bang and before the first stars. An international research team has determined this and believes that the mystery of dark matter could be solved in this way. According to the study, it is about developments in the universe that took place around 100 million years after the Big Bang and prepared the formation of the first stars. However, signals emitted during this process are blocked by the Earth's atmosphere, which is why observatories away from it are needed to investigate them. The moon would be particularly well suited for this.
Significant for basic research
As the team led by Rennan Barkana from Tel Aviv University explains, computer simulations suggest that dark matter clumped together in the so-called dark ages after the Big Bang. These clumps would have later helped in the formation of stars, and their size depends on unknown properties of dark matter. It was precisely these that could be researched. The clumps themselves would have attracted hydrogen gas and caused it to emit radio waves. Although these should be relatively weak, they would be detectable outside the Earth's atmosphere, the team explains. Telescopes on the moon would be suitable for this.
Furthermore, the research group has determined that the nascent stars should have massively amplified these signals later on, which is why they should then also be detectable from Earth. However, these measurements would be more challenging due to the interference caused by the same star formation, which is why analyses from the moon would be the most expedient. What could be discovered in this way would be “very significant for the scientific understanding of dark matter.” The original conditions in the universe before the formation of the first stars would potentially provide a perfect laboratory for astrophysics, provided they could be observed.
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Barkana has long been in favor of using the far side of the moon to make astronomical observations undisturbed by terrestrial influences. Two years ago, he explained that radio telescopes from there could determine the mass of neutrinos and the amount of hydrogen in the cosmos, among other things. The standard model of cosmology could also be tested and verified from there. There are no concrete plans for such an observatory as yet, but Barkana believes that space agencies around the world are searching for questions of scientific value that could only be answered from there. With the work now published in the journal Nature Astronomy, he believes he has found another one.
(mho)
