Why and Where Do We Want to Put Telescopes on the Moon?

Speaker

Nivedita Mahesh, CU Boulder

Abstract

The Moon is emerging as a uniquely valuable platform for astrophysics, enabling observations that neither Earth nor free-flying spacecraft can support. This talk surveys the scientific motivation across four complementary regimes. At low radio frequencies, the radio-quiet lunar farside opens a window onto the cosmological Dark Ages and the magnetospheres of exoplanets. In the mid-band gravitational-wave regime, the Moon's low seismic activity bridges the sensitivity gap between terrestrial and space-based detectors. At ultraviolet wavelengths, its natural vacuum and long coherence times allow high-resolution stellar imaging beyond what is possible on Earth. And in the far-infrared, the cold, stable conditions of permanently shadowed regions offer a naturally cryogenic, absorption-free site for probing star and planet formation and the obscured Universe.

For each regime, I will share updates from the mission concept leads on the efforts now developing within the Astrophysics from the Moon, Mars & Beyond (AMMB) Science Interest Group. Together, these cases point to a paradigm shift: astrophysics from the Moon is becoming not just desirable but necessary.

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