Low Frequency Radio Astronomy from the Moon

Abstract

The radio sky at frequencies of several MHz and below is essentially unexplored with high angular resolution due to refraction and opacity in the Earth’s ionosphere. An interferometer array in space providing arcminute resolution images would allow a wide range of problems in solar, planetary, galactic, and extragalactic astronomy to be attacked. These include the evolution of solar and planetary radio bursts, interplanetary and interstellar scintillation, the distribution of low energy cosmic rays and diffuse ionized hydrogen in our galaxy, the determination of spectral turnover frequencies and magnetic field strengths in galactic and extragalactic radio sources, searches for “fossil” radio galaxies which are no longer detectable by high frequency surveys, and searches for new sources of coherent radio emission. In addition, it is likely that unexpected objects and emission processes will be discovered by such an instrument, as has often happened when high resolution observations first become possible in a new spectral region. The Moon can provide shielding from terrestrial interference (and from the Sun half of the time) and consequently the lunar farside surface offers an ideal site of a low frequency radio array.