Astronomers are planning to launch a tiny spacecraft to the far side of the Moon to listen out for “ancient whispers” in a quest to uncover the secrets of the early universe.
The mission will focus on understanding the ‘Cosmic Dawn’, a period in the early stages of the universe after the Big Bang but before the first stars and galaxies appeared.
One of the difficulties in studying this period of the universe is that silence is essential.
With all the electronics and interference in our atmosphere, Earth becomes too loud, making it unsuitable for this kind of research.
“It’s like trying to hear that whisper while a loud concert is playing next door,” says Dr Eloy de Lera Acedo, who presented the proposal earlier this week to the Royal Astronomical Society’s National Astronomy Meeting 2025, in Durham, UK.
“This makes it really hard to pick up those faint signals from billions of years ago. To detect a special radio signal that comes from hydrogen – the first, most basic and most abundant chemical element – in the early universe, we need it to be quiet.
The proposed mission will utilise the Moon as a giant shield, blocking out the noise from Earth, in order to observe these signals.
“That’s why we’re proposing to send a small satellite to orbit the Moon and detect a signal which could hold clues about how everything began and how structures like galaxies eventually formed,” says de Lera Acedo.
The mission, known as CosmoCube, is a joint study between the UK’s University of Portsmouth, University of Cambridge and Rutherford Appleton Laboratory Space.
The miniature satellite will have a precision-calibrated, low-power radio and a satellite platform in lunar orbit.
CosmoCube’s radio will operate at low frequencies (10–100MHz), which should hopefully be able to detect extremely faint signals.
The team hope to reach lunar orbit before the end of the decade, with a roughly 5-year roadmap planned.
“By doing this, CosmoCube aims to help us better understand how our universe transformed from a simple, dark state to the complex, light-filled cosmos we see today, with all its stars and galaxies, ” says de Lera Acedo, head of Cavendish Radio Astronomy and Cosmology at the University of Cambridge.
The Cosmic Dawn, sometimes referred to as the Cosmic ‘Dark Ages’, is one of the last unexplored periods in observational cosmology.
“It’s incredible how far these radio waves have travelled, now arriving with news of the universe’s history,” says Professor David Bacon, from the University of Portsmouth and CosmoCube researcher.
“The next step is to go to the quieter side of the Moon to hear that news.”
It’s hoped that this mission may also help astronomers understand one of the mysteries of the universe known as Hubble tension.
The Hubble tension refers to the discrepancy in the measured rate of expansion and the observed rate of expansion across the early universe.
CosmoCube’s team is also hopeful that this mission will provide insights into the physics of the early universe and help explain how dark matter interacts with normal matter.
“Crucially, it will also help scientists investigate the mysterious dark matter and its role in shaping these cosmic structures,” says de Lera Acedo.
CosmoCube is supported under the UK Space Agency’s Science Bilateral Programme.