China considers building systems of radio telescopes on Moon’s far side

Scientists from the China Academy of Space Technology in Xi’an and the Shanghai Astronomical Observatory proposed constructing a vast array of radio telescopes on the far side of the Moon.

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Moon

According to the South China Morning Post (SCMP), the project would involve installing 7,200 antennas across a 30-square-kilometer area, enabling the detection of ultra-long-wavelength cosmic signals that Earth's atmosphere typically absorbs.

The initiative is part of China’s lunar exploration program, with a target completion date in the mid-2030s. The undertaking would be a complex engineering challenge, integrating scientific instruments, relay satellites, robotic systems, lunar surface logistics, and communication networks.

China currently selects taikonauts with experience aboard the Tiangong space station for its upcoming lunar missions. In October 2024,  Lin Xiqiang, deputy director of China’s Manned Space Program, confirmed the country's goal of landing astronauts on the Moon by 2030.

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The far side of the Moon is the lunar hemisphere that always faces away from Earth, opposite to the near side, because of synchronous rotation in the Moon's orbit. Compared to the near side, the far side's terrain is rugged, with a multitude of impact craters and relatively few flat and dark lunar maria ("seas"), giving it an appearance closer to other barren places in the Solar System such as Mercury and Callisto. It has one of the largest craters in the Solar System, the South Pole–Aitken basin. The hemisphere has sometimes been called the "Dark side of the Moon", where "dark" means "unknown" instead of "lacking sunlight" – each location on the Moon experiences two weeks of sunlight while the opposite location experiences night.