Published : 17 Aug 2026, 02:50 AM
Updated : 08 Sep 2026, 09:33 AM
Scientists are preparing to send a suitcase-sized satellite into lunar orbit to probe the universe’s earliest days, using the moon’s far side to escape Earth’s radio noise.
The CosmoCube mission will seek a faint radio signal known as the 21cm line, emitted by neutral hydrogen billions of years ago.
As the signal stretches across billions of years of cosmic travel, its changing wavelength could reveal how the temperature of the early universe evolved, reports The Guardian.
Professor Eloy de Lera Acedo of the University of Cambridge's Cavendish Laboratory, who is leading the project, said the signal functions like a thermometer for the early cosmos, revealing conditions from roughly 380,000 years after the Big Bang through to the emergence of the first stars and galaxies about a billion years later.
The signal's shape is also expected to carry fingerprints of dark matter, offering scientists a fresh way to probe the elusive substance.
Earlier attempts to detect the 21cm line from Earth have been hampered by weak signals and interference from radio technology and the planet's ionosphere.
Findings from Australia's Edges telescope, which claimed a detection, have since been disputed.
By observing from the moon's far side, the CosmoCube team hopes to sidestep these problems entirely.
The two-year mission is expected to cost close to £50 million and launch in about five years, backed so far by more than £2 million from the UK Space Agency.
Phil Bull, a cosmology professor at the Jodrell Bank Centre for Astrophysics who was not involved in the project, called it a valuable step toward understanding how the universe's first stars formed.
However, he cautioned that competing lunar missions could introduce the very radio interference CosmoCube is trying to avoid, turning the effort into "a race against time".
