Pull to refresh
Logo
Daily Brief
Following Why Ranks Sign Up
Stuart Bale

Stuart Bale

NASA Principal Investigator, UC Berkeley

Appears in 1 story

Notable Quotes

"This measurement is very challenging, radio emission from the galaxy is very bright and our Dark Ages signal is hiding behind it." — on the technical difficulty of detecting the 21cm signal

Stories

First radio telescope heads to Moon's far side

New Capabilities

Leading NASA's scientific and engineering effort

No instrument has ever detected light from the cosmic Dark Ages—the 200-million-year period after the Big Bang when the universe contained nothing but hydrogen gas, before the first stars ignited. Earth-based telescopes cannot observe this era: the atmosphere blocks the relevant radio frequencies, and human electronics drown out the faint signals. A radio telescope on the Moon's far side, shielded by 2,000 miles of rock from Earth's interference, could finally peer into this unexplored epoch.

Updated Jan 30