LuSEE-Night: A lunar radio-astronomy pathfinder.

by Anze Slosar (BNL)

Tuesday 19 May 2026, 15:30 → 16:30 US/Eastern

Large Seminar Room

Abstract: LuSEE-Night is a novel collaborative effort between NASA and DOE aiming to land a path-finder radio telescope on the far side of the Moon.  The instrument consists of 4 monopole antennas and will observe the radio sky between 0.1Mhz and 50MHz. This observational band is largely inaccessible from the Earth due to ionosphere and radio interference, but offers potentially transformational information about the early universe.  It is manifested to launch on the Firefly Blue Ghost Mission 2 to land in early 2027. There will be many attempted first: first US landing on the lunar far side, first landing on the lunar far-side by a private company, first atttempt to survive the lunar night in the modern times, first demonstration of a radio calibration from a dedicated orbiting calibrator around any body and the first radio instrument on the lunar far-side delivering science-grade data.  I will describe the science, the instrument and future opportunities for fundamental physics from the far side of the Moon.

 

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