Tiny satellite will use the dark side of the Moon to eavesdrop on whispers from the early universe

A tiny satellite is about to hide behind the Moon to listen for whispers from the birth of the universe. Cambridge researchers have helped develop CosmoCube, a small UK satellite designed to sit on the far side of the Moon, shielded from Earth's radio noise. From there, it will try to detect extremely faint radio signals left over from the 'Dark Ages,' the period before the first stars ever formed. Earth is bathed in radio interference from our own broadcasts and electronics, making faint cosmic signals nearly impossible to detect. The Moon's far side blocks all of that noise, making it one of the only truly radio-quiet places we can access. CosmoCube will search for a specific radio signature from neutral hydrogen gas that filled the early universe before any stars existed, essentially listening for the universe's first whispers before there was any light. If successful, it could help answer one of cosmology's biggest open questions: what happened in the Dark Ages before the first stars

Tiny satellite will use the dark side of the Moon to eavesdrop on whispers from the early universe

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