“NASA and the Department of Energy (DOE) are working together to develop a science instrument that will survive the harsh and unforgiving environment of the lunar surface at night on the far side of the Moon to attempt first-of-its-kind measurements of the Dark Ages of the Universe. The instrument, named the Lunar Surface Electromagnetics Experiment – Night (LuSEE-Night), is a collaboration between DOE’s Brookhaven National Laboratory, the DOE Office of Science, UC Berkeley’s Space Sciences Laboratory, and NASA’s Science Mission Directorate…
The Dark Ages is an important epoch in cosmological studies as it can provide new insights into the formation and evolution of our Universe. The Dark Ages occurred between approximately 380 thousand – 400 million years after the origin of the universe, known as the Big Bang, and are a time before the first luminous stars and galaxies appeared. Since radio waves present the only signal we can measure from the Dark Ages, LuSEE provides an opportunity to learn how the first non-luminous matter evolved into the stars and galaxies that we see dominating the observable Universe today.”