A very low frequency radio astronomy observatory on the Moon

摘要

Because of terrestrial ionospheric absorption, very little is known of the radio sky beyond 10 m wavelength. An extremely simple, low cost very low frequency radio telescope is proposed, consisting of a large array of short wires laid on the lunar surface, each wire equipped with an amplifier and a digitizer, and connected to a common computer. The telescope could do simultaneous multifrequency observations of much of the visible sky with high resolution in the 10 to 100 m wavelength range, and with lower resolution in the 100 to 1000 m range. It would explore structure and spectra of galactic and extragalactic point sources, objects, and clouds, and would produce detailed quasi-three-dimensional mapping of interstellar matter within several thousand parsecs of the Sun.