Dark Side of the moon to see the beginning of the Universe

Why should we build a giant telescope on the back of the moon? Well, it seems that the dark side of the moon is the only place that human interference has left untouched that also happens to be near us.

The "dark ages" of astronomy refer to a time before stars existed, when clouds of ionized gas cooled as the Universe expanded. During that time, there wa a faint noise that came from hydrogen atoms doing spin-flips, which gives off radio-wavelength signals that astronomers can pick up on.
Kurt Weiler, senior astronomer at the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory says, ""What happens is that because of the Big Bang there's a background glow. The spin-flip will absorb the glow of the older material and will give us a signature that we can see."

However, this signals are very faint, and can easily be masked by Earth transmissions in the same wavelength. There are now plans to build the Dark Ages Lunar Interferometer, which would be made up of over 100 thousand antennas. The only problem is getting this telescope to the moon, and making it survive the conditions on the Moon.

As plans continue, perhaps this telescope will be feasible. Scientists are now testing a film called polyimide to see if it might work. Finding out about the origins of the Universe will realize a dream that many astronomers had before anyone ever explored the moon. Maybe, just maybe, we'll finally truly know how exactly the the universe start.

What's up with Moondust?

Moon dust was a big annoyance for the first moon explorers. It stuck to everything and it was mostly due to its electrostatic charge.
A group of NASA and University of Alabama researchers, Mian Abbas, James Spann, Richard Hoover and Dragana Tankosic have been experimenting with moon dust in a variety of ways.

The Moon, unlike Earth, has no magnetic field protecting it from solar winds. Thus, moon dust is charged up by free electrons of the solar winds.
Abbas et al. experimented with the effects of ultraviolet light on moon dust in previous studies to find out how moon dust will be like in the daylight hours on the moon. Now they are investigating what happens in the dark hours.
At the Dusty Plasma Lab, the scientists simulate solar wind-like conditions to find out more. Abbas experimented with the moon dust by blasting electrons at dust grains. There were surprising results his studies.

"We're finding that individual dust grains do not act the same as larger amounts of moon dust put together. Existing theories based on calculations of the charge of a large amount of moondust don't apply to the moondust at the single particle level," says Abbas.
In a certain experiment, a positively charged grain was pelted with electrons and the grain wounded up more positively charged (Electrons are negative). It appeared that electrons hitting the grain caused more electrons to be dislodged.

However, not all moon dust behaves this way. It all depends on a number of things, such as size, charge, and the number of electrons coming at it. Spann adds that single grains of moon dust will also behave differently on the moon.
By understanding how moon dust behaves, we are getting closer to lunar settlement and colonization. After all, the moon is filled with moon dust.