Context
Scientists plan to launch CosmoCube, a small satellite that will orbit the Moon and use its radio-quiet far side to detect the extremely faint 21-cm signal of neutral hydrogen from the early universe. It could help reveal how the first stars and galaxies formed.
Explanation
- The early universe’s Cosmic Dark Ages cannot be directly studied using ordinary visible-light telescopes because stars had not yet formed.
- Neutral hydrogen from this period produces a characteristic 21-cm radio signal (1,420 MHz), but the ancient signal is redshifted to much lower frequencies and is extremely faint.
- Detecting it from near Earth is difficult because human-made radio-frequency interference can be thousands of times stronger.
- CosmoCube will orbit the Moon and make observations while passing behind its far side, where the Moon naturally blocks terrestrial radio noise.
- It will search for the hydrogen signal associated with the Cosmic Dawn and Epoch of Reionization, when the first stars transformed neutral hydrogen.
- It couldreveal the formation of the first stars and galaxies and provide independent clues about dark matter and the Hubble tension.
- India’s proposed lunar-orbit experiment PRATUSH also aims to detect the redshifted 21-cm hydrogen signal.
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