# A Tiny Satellite Could Reveal the Universe Before the First Stars

An episode of [Bedtime Astronomy](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/1736397134), 31 Aug 2026, 40 min.

Audio: https://dts.podtrac.com/redirect.mp3/api.spreaker.com/download/episode/74048749/moonp.mp3

A British-led team is developing CosmoCube, a miniature satellite that could explore the universe’s mysterious cosmic dark ages from lunar orbit. Using the Moon’s far side to block Earth’s radio interference, the spacecraft will search for ancient hydrogen signals that could reveal how the first stars formed and how dark matter shaped the early universe. Thank you for listening to Bedtime Astronomy — your guide to the cosmos. New episodes on space exploration, NASA missions & the latest astronomy breakthroughs. This episode includes AI-generated content.

## Transcript

[0:03] Speaker 1: Welcome to Bedtime Astronomy. Explore the wonders of the cosmos
[0:07] Speaker 1: with our soothing Bedtime Astronomie podcast. Each episode offers a
[0:12] Speaker 1: gentle journey through the stars, planets, and beyond, perfect for
[0:16] Speaker 1: unwinding after a long day. Let's travel through the mysteries
[0:20] Speaker 1: of the universe as you drift off into a peaceful
[0:22] Speaker 1: slumber under.
[0:23] Speaker 3: The night sky.
[0:27] Speaker 2: Imagine standing in the front row of a sold out
[0:31] Speaker 2: rock concert. The band is mid song, the bass is
[0:34] Speaker 2: physically rattling your ribcage, you know, the speakers are just
[0:38] Speaker 2: towering over you, and you've got fifty thousand people screaming
[0:41] Speaker 2: at the absolute top of.
[0:42] Speaker 3: Their lungs loud.
[0:44] Speaker 2: It's a physical wall of sound. Now, while you are
[0:46] Speaker 2: standing right there, right in the middle of all that chaos,
[0:50] Speaker 2: try to hear a single person whispering to you good
[0:53] Speaker 2: luck with that, right, But not just someone next to you,
[0:56] Speaker 2: a person standing on the exact opposite side of the planet.
[0:59] Speaker 3: Oh wow, I mean, which is from a purely physical standpoint,
[1:03] Speaker 3: completely impossible. Exactly the decibel level of the concert would
[1:07] Speaker 3: just mask any subtle vibration, let alone a whisper from
[1:11] Speaker 3: across the globe. The signal to noise ratio there is completely.
[1:14] Speaker 2: Absurd, right, It's an absurd scenario. But that impossible scenario
[1:18] Speaker 2: is actually well, it's a perfect way to understand the
[1:20] Speaker 2: exact real world challenge that astronomers are dealing with right
[1:24] Speaker 2: this second. They are trying to hear the absolute earliest
[1:27] Speaker 2: secrets of the universe, but our immediate environment here on
[1:30] Speaker 2: Earth is just violently overwhelmingly loud.
[1:33] Speaker 3: He really is.
[1:34] Speaker 2: But there is a plan to get away from the concert,
[1:37] Speaker 2: and that involves a tiny, incredibly brilliant piece of UK
[1:41] Speaker 2: developed technology called Cosmo Cube.
[1:44] Speaker 3: And when we say tiny, we're talking about a spacecraft
[1:47] Speaker 3: roughly the dimensions of like a carry on suitcase.
[1:50] Speaker 2: Like the kind you struggle to fit into the overhead
[1:53] Speaker 2: bin on a commercial flight.
[1:54] Speaker 3: Exactly, Yeah, just a little rectangular box.
[1:56] Speaker 2: But the mission for this particular piece of luggage is
[1:59] Speaker 2: just staggering. I mean, it isn't staying in Earth orbit.
[2:03] Speaker 2: It is going to travel all the way to the
[2:05] Speaker 2: far side of the Moon, and it's making that journey
[2:07] Speaker 2: specifically to eavesdrop on an era known as the cosmic
[2:11] Speaker 2: Dark Ages, right, which is this profoundly mysterious one hundred
[2:15] Speaker 2: and fifty million year gap in our history that happened
[2:18] Speaker 2: right before the very first stars ever ignited.
[2:21] Speaker 3: So for you listening, here is the journey we are
[2:24] Speaker 3: going to take together. We need to figure out how
[2:27] Speaker 3: this little suitcase size Marvel plans to achieve something that massive,
[2:33] Speaker 3: multi billion dollar observatories right here on Earth are physically
[2:37] Speaker 3: incapable of doing. We are going to explore how Cosmo
[2:41] Speaker 3: Cube will peel back over thirteen point five billion years
[2:45] Speaker 3: of cosmic history to hunt for the fingerprints of dark.
[2:48] Speaker 2: Matter, which is huge.
[2:50] Speaker 3: It's huge, And crucially, we have to talk about why
[2:53] Speaker 3: there is a very real ticking clock hanging over this
[2:57] Speaker 3: entire endeavor, because there's a literal race happening right now
[3:01] Speaker 3: to get this done before the Moon itself becomes too
[3:04] Speaker 3: noisy to hear anything at all.
[3:05] Speaker 2: I want to start with the target itself, because if
[3:07] Speaker 2: Cosmic Cube is launching all the way to the Moon
[3:09] Speaker 2: just to listen to the early universe, we need to
[3:11] Speaker 2: understand what exactly it's listening to. You called it the
[3:14] Speaker 2: cosmic Dark Ages. What is happening or I guess not
[3:18] Speaker 2: happening in the universe during this specific window of time.
[3:21] Speaker 3: To picture the Cosmic Dark Ages you have to rewind
[3:23] Speaker 3: the clock almost to the very beginning. We're looking at
[3:26] Speaker 3: a one hundred and fifty million year period that sits
[3:29] Speaker 3: right between two major cosmic milestones. On one end, you
[3:33] Speaker 3: have the fading afterglow of the Big Bang itself, the
[3:36] Speaker 3: actual explosion, well, the expansion, yeah, And on the other
[3:39] Speaker 3: end you have what cosmologists referred to as cosmic dawn
[3:42] Speaker 3: cosmic don right, which is the exact moment the first
[3:46] Speaker 3: star has finally switched on.
[3:48] Speaker 2: Cosmic dawn is a great term, but it implies that
[3:51] Speaker 2: everything before it was just pitch black, like is that literal?
[3:54] Speaker 2: Was the universe actually dark?
[3:56] Speaker 3: It was entirely literal. I mean there were no stars,
[4:00] Speaker 3: there were no galaxies, there were no quasars or black
[4:03] Speaker 3: holes emitting massive jets of radiation, just nothing lighting up exactly.
[4:07] Speaker 3: The universe at this point had cooled down enough from
[4:10] Speaker 3: the Big Bang that matter could actually form, but it
[4:13] Speaker 3: hadn't yet condensed enough to trigger nuclear fusion.
[4:15] Speaker 2: So what was there?
[4:17] Speaker 3: So what you had was essentially a vast, incredibly cold,
[4:20] Speaker 3: ever expanding cloud of neutral hydrogen gas, just hydrogen, that's it,
[4:24] Speaker 3: Just a dark fog of hydrogen filling the entire universe.
[4:27] Speaker 2: If it's just a dark fog and there is absolutely
[4:30] Speaker 2: no light being generated, how do we study it? Because
[4:33] Speaker 2: you know, telescopes need light to see things, right, We
[4:36] Speaker 2: can't just take a long exposure photograph of a completely
[4:39] Speaker 2: pitch black room and expect to see anything.
[4:41] Speaker 3: And that is the fundamental roadblock of optical astronomy. You
[4:45] Speaker 3: cannot photograph the dark ages. There's no light to catch.
[4:49] Speaker 2: So what's the alternative.
[4:51] Speaker 3: Well, instead of looking for visible light, you have to
[4:53] Speaker 3: tune into radio frequencies.
[4:55] Speaker 2: You have to listen, listen to the gas.
[4:58] Speaker 3: Yes, specifically, Acube is hunting for something called the twenty
[5:02] Speaker 3: one centimeter line. Okay, this is a very specific, incredibly
[5:06] Speaker 3: faint radio signal emitted naturally by those ancient hydrogen atoms
[5:10] Speaker 3: over thirteen point five billion years ago.
[5:12] Speaker 2: Okay, stop right there, because this is where the science
[5:14] Speaker 2: usually loses me. Sure, a twenty one centimeter line. Why
[5:18] Speaker 2: is a hydrogen atom emitting a radio signal? And why
[5:21] Speaker 2: is it exactly twenty one centimeters long? Like? What is
[5:23] Speaker 2: the physical mechanism happening inside that dark fog?
[5:26] Speaker 3: It comes down to quantum mechanics. But we can visualize
[5:29] Speaker 3: it without getting bogged down and all the terrifying math.
[5:31] Speaker 3: Thank you think about a single atom of neutral hydrogen.
[5:35] Speaker 3: It is the absolute simplest atom.
[5:38] Speaker 2: In existence, just one proton, one electron exactly.
[5:41] Speaker 3: You have one proton in the center acting as the nucleus,
[5:44] Speaker 3: and one electron orbiting around.
[5:46] Speaker 2: It, like a tiny planet orbiting a tiny sun.
[5:48] Speaker 3: It's a useful starting point, even if you know quantum
[5:52] Speaker 3: physicists might cringe a bit at the planetary model. But
[5:55] Speaker 3: here is where it gets interesting. Both of those particles,
[6:00] Speaker 3: the proton and the electron, have a quantum property called spin.
[6:04] Speaker 2: Spin.
[6:05] Speaker 3: You can think of them as tiny spinning tops, and
[6:07] Speaker 3: because they carry an electrical charge, that spin turns them
[6:11] Speaker 3: into incredibly weak microscopic magnets.
[6:14] Speaker 2: So they both have a magnetic north and.
[6:16] Speaker 3: South pole precisely. Now, just like real magnets, they care
[6:20] Speaker 3: deeply about how they are aligned relative to each other.
[6:23] Speaker 3: The electron of the proton can either be spinning in
[6:25] Speaker 3: the same direction, meaning their poles are parallel, or they
[6:27] Speaker 3: could be spinning in opposite directions, meaning they're anti parallel.
[6:31] Speaker 2: And I'm assuming one of those states takes more energy
[6:34] Speaker 2: to maintain than the other, like trying to hold two
[6:37] Speaker 2: repelling magnets together in your hand.
[6:39] Speaker 3: That's the key. Yes, When the proton and electron are
[6:43] Speaker 3: spinning in the same direction, the atom has slightly more energy.
[6:47] Speaker 2: It's tense.
[6:47] Speaker 3: It's tense. When they spin in opposite directions, it rests
[6:51] Speaker 3: in a slightly lower energy state. It's more relaxed. Okay,
[6:55] Speaker 3: but nature is lazy. Everything in the universe wants to
[6:59] Speaker 3: rest in its lowest possible energy state. So eventually, an
[7:04] Speaker 3: electron that is spinning in the same direction as its
[7:06] Speaker 3: proton will spontaneously flip over to spin the opposite way.
[7:10] Speaker 2: Wait, it just flips on its own.
[7:12] Speaker 3: It does. It's literally called a spin flip transition.
[7:14] Speaker 2: Yeah.
[7:15] Speaker 3: But here's the catch. Because the atom just dropped from
[7:18] Speaker 3: a higher energy state to a lower energy state, it
[7:20] Speaker 3: has to get rid of that excess energy. Conservation of energy,
[7:23] Speaker 3: the law of conservation of energy demands it. So it
[7:25] Speaker 3: spits that extra energy out into the universe in the
[7:27] Speaker 3: form of a photon tiny packet of electromagnetic radiation, and.
[7:32] Speaker 2: The wavelength of that specific photon happens to be twenty
[7:34] Speaker 2: one centimeters.
[7:36] Speaker 3: Yes, the energy difference between those two spin states is
[7:39] Speaker 3: incredibly small, so the photon it emits is very very
[7:43] Speaker 3: low energy, right, And in the electromagnetic spectrum, a low
[7:47] Speaker 3: energy photon corresponds to a long wavelength, and the wavelength
[7:51] Speaker 3: of this specific transition is exactly twenty one centimeters. Woh.
[7:56] Speaker 3: It falls right into the radiofrequency spectrum, specifically at a
[7:59] Speaker 3: frequency of fourteen and twenty megahertz.
[8:02] Speaker 2: So every single hydrogen atom in this vast dark universe
[8:06] Speaker 2: has the potential to eventually flip its electron, and when
[8:09] Speaker 2: it does, it sends out a tiny radio ping at
[8:12] Speaker 2: exactly twenty one centimeters.
[8:13] Speaker 3: You've got it now, For any single hydrogen atom, this
[8:17] Speaker 3: spin flip is incredibly rare. It might take millions of
[8:21] Speaker 3: years for one specific atom to flip.
[8:22] Speaker 2: Oh wow.
[8:23] Speaker 3: Okay, but during the dark Ages, the universe was filled
[8:25] Speaker 3: with octilions upon octilions of hydrogen atoms. It's just an
[8:28] Speaker 3: unfathomable amount.
[8:29] Speaker 2: Of gas, right, So sheer numbers take over exactly.
[8:32] Speaker 3: So, even if the individual flips are rare, there are
[8:34] Speaker 3: so many atoms that collectively they create a steady, continuous
[8:38] Speaker 3: radio hump. That twenty one centimeter line is the only
[8:41] Speaker 3: voice the universe had during this entire epic. By mapping
[8:46] Speaker 3: that signal. We are literally mapping the raw building blocks
[8:51] Speaker 3: of everything that exists today.
[8:53] Speaker 2: I'm trying to picture the sheer scale of this. The
[8:56] Speaker 2: universe is like it's like an unlit theater right before
[9:00] Speaker 2: massive play begins. I like that we the astronomers are
[9:03] Speaker 2: sitting in the audience in the pitch dark. We obviously
[9:06] Speaker 2: cannot see the actors on stage because the stage lights
[9:08] Speaker 2: haven't been turned on yet, the cosmic don hasn't happened exactly.
[9:12] Speaker 2: But if we listen incredibly closely, we can hear the
[9:15] Speaker 2: microscopic floorboards creaking. We can hear the actors shuffling into
[9:19] Speaker 2: their positions in the dark. Yes, and that collective shuffling
[9:22] Speaker 2: sound is the twenty one centimeter line.
[9:24] Speaker 3: It's a great way to visualize the intent of the mission.
[9:27] Speaker 3: We are mapping the invisible actors as they take their marks.
[9:30] Speaker 3: But this resists to a massive logistical problem, right because
[9:34] Speaker 3: the theater analogy works for the universe, but it totally
[9:37] Speaker 3: ignores where we are sitting.
[9:38] Speaker 2: Right now, which brings us back to the rock concert.
[9:41] Speaker 3: Yes, if we know what we are listening for, this
[9:43] Speaker 3: twenty one centimeter whisper from the hydrogen dilditation, the logical
[9:48] Speaker 3: question is, why don't we just build a giant radio
[9:51] Speaker 3: dish here on Earth and point it at the sky.
[9:54] Speaker 2: Yeah, we have radio telescopes the size of football stadiums.
[9:57] Speaker 2: I mean, why don't they work?
[9:58] Speaker 3: Because Earth is too loud? We are sitting inside the speakers.
[10:02] Speaker 2: It's actually a twofold problem. Earth is incredibly loud. Yes,
[10:06] Speaker 2: but before we even deal with the noise of human civilization,
[10:10] Speaker 2: we have to deal with the physics of the planet itself. Okay,
[10:13] Speaker 2: we have to talk about the ionosphere.
[10:15] Speaker 3: The ionosphere, that's a layer of the upper atmosphere, right
[10:17] Speaker 3: it is.
[10:17] Speaker 2: It's a shell of electrons and electrically charged atoms and
[10:21] Speaker 2: molecules that surrounds the Earth, stretching from about thirty miles
[10:25] Speaker 2: to six hundred miles above the surface. Okay, It gets
[10:28] Speaker 2: ionized by solar and cosmic radiation, and this layer acts
[10:32] Speaker 2: like a physical brick wall for certain types of radio waves.
[10:34] Speaker 3: But wait, earlier, you said the twenty one cent a
[10:37] Speaker 3: line has a frequency of fourteen hundred and twenty megahert.
[10:39] Speaker 3: I did we use frequencies like that on Earth all
[10:41] Speaker 3: the time? That shouldn't be blocked by the atmosphere. Otherwise
[10:45] Speaker 3: our GPS and cell phones wouldn't work with satellites.
[10:48] Speaker 2: You're absolutely right that fourteen one hundred and twenty megaherts
[10:51] Speaker 2: can penetrate the atmosphere. But the signal isn't fourteen twenty
[10:55] Speaker 2: megaherts anymore.
[10:56] Speaker 3: What do you mean?
[10:56] Speaker 2: You have to remember how old this whisper is. It
[10:59] Speaker 2: was emitted thirteen point five billion years ago. And what
[11:03] Speaker 2: has the universe been doing for the last thirteen point
[11:06] Speaker 2: five billion years?
[11:08] Speaker 3: Expanding?
[11:08] Speaker 2: Expanding. As the universe expands, space itself stretches. Oh right,
[11:14] Speaker 2: And as that twenty one centimeter radio wave travel through
[11:17] Speaker 2: space over billions of years, the fabric of space stretched
[11:21] Speaker 2: the wave out right along with it, like pulling a
[11:23] Speaker 2: slinky exactly. This is a process called cosmological redshift. By
[11:27] Speaker 2: the time that ancient signal finally arrives here at Earth,
[11:30] Speaker 2: its wavelength has been stretched dramatically. It is no longer
[11:34] Speaker 2: twenty one centimeters.
[11:35] Speaker 3: How long is it?
[11:36] Speaker 2: It's now several meters long?
[11:37] Speaker 3: Oh wow, So the frequency dropped drastically.
[11:40] Speaker 2: It drops from fourteen twenty megahertz all the way down
[11:42] Speaker 2: to somewhere between ten and fifty mega hurts.
[11:44] Speaker 3: That's a huge drop.
[11:45] Speaker 2: It is an ultra low frequency radio wave by the
[11:48] Speaker 2: time it reaches our solar system, and this is where
[11:51] Speaker 2: the ionosphere becomes the villain of.
[11:54] Speaker 3: The story because of the low frequency.
[11:56] Speaker 2: Yes, the ionosphere is highly reflective and absorptive to radio
[12:00] Speaker 2: frequencies below about thirty to fifty megahertz.
[12:03] Speaker 3: So the signal travels for thirteen point five billion years,
[12:07] Speaker 3: surviving the vast empty void of space, only to bounce
[12:11] Speaker 3: off Earth's upper atmosphere at the very last second.
[12:14] Speaker 2: Exactly. Earth based telescopes are fundamentally deaf to this specific
[12:18] Speaker 2: era of the universe because the planet is wearing air plugs.
[12:21] Speaker 2: The signal just cannot penetrate down to the ground.
[12:24] Speaker 3: Okay, so the obvious solution is to launch a satellite
[12:27] Speaker 3: get above the ionosphere. If the atmosphere is the problem,
[12:29] Speaker 3: just put a radio dish in lower orbit. Do that
[12:32] Speaker 3: for optical telescopes like Hubble to get above the clouds.
[12:35] Speaker 3: Why not do it for radio.
[12:36] Speaker 2: Telescopes because if you go to lower th orbit, you
[12:38] Speaker 2: solve the ionosphere problem, but you immediately run face first
[12:41] Speaker 2: into the.
[12:41] Speaker 3: Second problem, sus humanity.
[12:44] Speaker 2: Once you are above the ionosphere, you are subjected to
[12:46] Speaker 2: the full unshielded blast of human civilization.
[12:50] Speaker 3: The rock concept, the rock concert.
[12:53] Speaker 2: In the ten to fifty megahertz range, humanity is screaming.
[12:57] Speaker 3: What's broadcasting on those frequencies is.
[13:00] Speaker 2: The spectrum used for short wave radio, certain types of television, broadcasts,
[13:04] Speaker 2: early warning radar systems, and communications. Every radio station, every
[13:09] Speaker 2: ping from a telecommunications network creates a blinding wall of
[13:13] Speaker 2: electronic noise.
[13:14] Speaker 3: And it all just blasts out into space.
[13:16] Speaker 2: Yes, trying to hear a stretched out ancient hydrogen atom
[13:20] Speaker 2: over the sound of a global FM radio broadcast is impossible.
[13:24] Speaker 3: But space is big. I mean, if we put a
[13:25] Speaker 3: satellite in orbit around Earth, could we just design it
[13:28] Speaker 3: to look out.
[13:28] Speaker 2: Word like, turn its back.
[13:30] Speaker 3: Yeah, point the antenna away from Earth, out to the
[13:33] Speaker 3: deep black and effectively turn its back to the noise
[13:35] Speaker 3: of the planet.
[13:36] Speaker 2: That intuition makes sense if you think of radio waves
[13:39] Speaker 2: like light from a flashlight, you know, like a tight beam, right,
[13:42] Speaker 2: But radio waves at these low frequencies behave very differently.
[13:46] Speaker 2: They don't travel in perfectly straight narrow beams.
[13:48] Speaker 3: They diffract out, they diffract, they.
[13:50] Speaker 2: Bend, they spread out and wrap around the edges of objects.
[13:54] Speaker 3: So even if the antenna's pointing away the radio waves
[13:57] Speaker 3: from Earth would just wash over the findes the satellite.
[14:00] Speaker 2: They would completely engulfit. The human radio noise is so
[14:04] Speaker 2: overpowering that it would easily diffract around the physical structure
[14:07] Speaker 2: of the satellite, bounce off the satellite's own solar panels,
[14:11] Speaker 2: or even reflect off nearby space debris, and flood right
[14:14] Speaker 2: into the delicate sensors.
[14:16] Speaker 3: So you can't escape it.
[14:17] Speaker 2: You cannot just put your hands over your ears and
[14:19] Speaker 2: look away. To stop low frequency radio waves of this magnitude,
[14:24] Speaker 2: you need a physical barrier of immense thickness.
[14:27] Speaker 3: Which means we need thousands of miles of solid rock
[14:30] Speaker 3: to absorb the interference. We need the Moon.
[14:32] Speaker 2: We need the Moon, and not just anywhere on the Moon.
[14:34] Speaker 2: It has to be the far side right. The solution
[14:37] Speaker 2: to this dual problem, the blocking ionosphere and the blinding
[14:40] Speaker 2: human noise, is to put cosmic cube into orbit around
[14:43] Speaker 2: the far side of the Moon, using the sheer mass
[14:46] Speaker 2: of an entire planetary body as a giant physical radio shield.
[14:51] Speaker 3: That is an incredible piece of problem solving, using the
[14:54] Speaker 3: Moon as a sound proof vault.
[14:56] Speaker 2: It is arguably the most elegant solution available to us
[14:59] Speaker 2: in modern astronomy. Professor Eloy de learra Aceto from Cambridge's
[15:03] Speaker 2: Cavendish Laboratory, who is the lead author on the paper
[15:06] Speaker 2: detailing this mission, describes the far side of the Moon
[15:10] Speaker 2: as a fortress of solitude.
[15:12] Speaker 3: I love that Superman's ice cave, complete isolation from the
[15:17] Speaker 3: noise of the world.
[15:18] Speaker 2: It's the perfect description. There is an entire planetary body
[15:22] Speaker 2: made of dense rock sitting squarely between your sensitive antenna
[15:25] Speaker 2: and the chaotic radio environment of Earth. Right Professor de
[15:28] Speaker 2: larra Aceto pointed out that there is simply no other
[15:31] Speaker 2: place in our immediate neighborhood where you can achieve the
[15:34] Speaker 2: sort of shielding required to detect such a faint signal
[15:37] Speaker 2: while still having an unobstructed view.
[15:39] Speaker 3: Of the cosmos. The only option.
[15:41] Speaker 2: It solves the ionosphere problem and the human interference problem simultaneously.
[15:44] Speaker 3: The mission plan isn't to land on the far side, right,
[15:47] Speaker 3: cosmic Cube is going to stay in orbit. Correct.
[15:50] Speaker 2: A surface landing mission is vastly more complicated and expensive.
[15:53] Speaker 2: Cosmic Cube will be inserted into a lunar orbit. Specifically,
[15:57] Speaker 2: the plan calls for a two hour orbit around the Moon.
[16:00] Speaker 3: Okay, so every two hours it completes one lap around
[16:03] Speaker 3: the Moon, right, But if it's orbiting, that means it
[16:05] Speaker 3: isn't always behind the Moon half the time, it's going
[16:09] Speaker 3: to be on the near side, facing Earth.
[16:11] Speaker 2: And that orbital geometry dictates the entire pace of the science.
[16:14] Speaker 2: When Cosmo Cube comes around to the near side of
[16:17] Speaker 2: the Moon, it gets absolutely blasted by Earth's noise.
[16:21] Speaker 3: Right back of the rock concert exactly.
[16:23] Speaker 2: The sensors essentially become useless for detecting the dark ages.
[16:28] Speaker 2: During that two hour lap, it will only be deep
[16:30] Speaker 2: inside the Fortress of Solitude, completely shielded from Earth's interference,
[16:34] Speaker 2: for roughly forty minutes per orbit.
[16:36] Speaker 3: Wait, forty minutes, that's it.
[16:38] Speaker 2: That's it.
[16:38] Speaker 3: Forty minutes of silence, and then an hour and twenty
[16:41] Speaker 3: minutes of blinding static over and over again. That doesn't
[16:44] Speaker 3: seem like nearly enough time to gather data on a
[16:47] Speaker 3: signal this week.
[16:48] Speaker 2: It requires an extreme amount of patience. Because the signal
[16:52] Speaker 2: is so faint, Astronomers need to collect a massive volume
[16:55] Speaker 2: of data to mathematically verify what they're seeing.
[16:58] Speaker 3: You need a big sample size.
[16:59] Speaker 2: They can't just take a quick snapshot. The team expects
[17:02] Speaker 2: that it will require a full, continuous, two year mission
[17:05] Speaker 2: just to build up roughly one thousand hours of pristine,
[17:10] Speaker 2: noise free data.
[17:11] Speaker 3: Two years of doing last running forty minutes of dark
[17:14] Speaker 3: age data, then surviving eighty minutes of Earth's greatest hits,
[17:18] Speaker 3: then back to the silence. It's a cosmic endurance.
[17:21] Speaker 2: Test and an engineering endurance test because figuring out the
[17:25] Speaker 2: orbital mechanics and using the Moon as a shield is
[17:27] Speaker 2: only the environmental half of the equation.
[17:30] Speaker 3: Right, there's the physical satellite.
[17:31] Speaker 2: We haven't even talked about the physical hardware yet. How
[17:34] Speaker 2: do you actually build an instrument sensitive enough to decode
[17:37] Speaker 2: thirteen point five billion year old cosmic secrets and then
[17:41] Speaker 2: figure out how to cram it into a box of
[17:43] Speaker 2: the size of a piece of carry on luggage.
[17:45] Speaker 3: I really want to dig into that because if you
[17:47] Speaker 3: look at modern astronomy, the trend is always bigger, always bigger.
[17:51] Speaker 3: You know, the James Web Space telescope is the size
[17:53] Speaker 3: of a tennis court. The radio arrays we build on
[17:55] Speaker 3: Earth stretch across entire deserts. How is the suitcase supposed
[17:58] Speaker 3: to do this?
[17:59] Speaker 2: It requires where's a paradigm shift in how we build
[18:01] Speaker 2: space platforms. It's an exercise in extreme miniaturization. The physical
[18:07] Speaker 2: spacecraft platform that Cosmic Cube will use is called the
[18:10] Speaker 2: SSTL twenty one. It is being developed in the UK
[18:13] Speaker 2: by Serre Space Technology Limited or SSTL.
[18:16] Speaker 3: It's their specialty.
[18:17] Speaker 2: They specialize in manufacturing highly capable, small scale satellites.
[18:22] Speaker 3: Is the size just a logistical choice or is it
[18:25] Speaker 3: driven by something else? I have to imagine launching a
[18:27] Speaker 3: suitcase is a lot cheaper than launching a tennis court.
[18:30] Speaker 2: Cost is the driving factor. Absolutely. The entire mission is
[18:34] Speaker 2: structured around being aggressively affordable.
[18:37] Speaker 3: How affordable are we talking?
[18:38] Speaker 2: This proposal was submitted to the European Space Agency the ESA,
[18:42] Speaker 2: specifically for their Mini Fast missions call for ideas. The
[18:45] Speaker 2: target budget for Cosmic Cube is under fifty million euros.
[18:49] Speaker 3: Under fifty million euros to unlock the Dark Ages. That
[18:52] Speaker 3: feels like a rounding error in the context of international
[18:55] Speaker 3: space exploration budgets.
[18:57] Speaker 2: It is incredibly cheap for deep space science, completely flips
[19:00] Speaker 2: the traditional script. You have a team aiming to probe
[19:03] Speaker 2: the deepest, vastest, most ancient parts of the universe, and
[19:06] Speaker 2: they are restricted to a compact, low cost platform.
[19:09] Speaker 3: It demands absolute efficiency in the engineering.
[19:12] Speaker 2: Let's talk about that engineering the satellite gets into its
[19:15] Speaker 2: two hour lunar orbit, it survives the launch. What happens next?
[19:20] Speaker 2: How does a suitcase deploy an antenna big enough to
[19:23] Speaker 2: catch radio waves that are meters long?
[19:25] Speaker 3: Well, once it is safely inserted into orbit, the satellite transforms,
[19:29] Speaker 3: it will unfurl a long, highly specialized lightweight radio antenna
[19:34] Speaker 3: just unrolls it. Yeah, essentially, this isn't a solid dish
[19:37] Speaker 3: like you might picture on a house. It's a structural
[19:40] Speaker 3: element designed specifically to resonate with that ten to fifty
[19:44] Speaker 3: megahertz frequency range. Okay, when the satellite crosses into the
[19:47] Speaker 3: shadow of the moon, it activates the antenna to pick
[19:51] Speaker 3: up the twenty one centimeter signal.
[19:53] Speaker 2: But wait, I'm thinking about the physics of this again.
[19:55] Speaker 2: If the signal from the hydrogen is as unimaginably famed
[19:58] Speaker 2: as you say it is, the satellite itself be a problem.
[20:02] Speaker 3: What do you mean.
[20:02] Speaker 2: It's a machine, It has an onboard computer, it has
[20:05] Speaker 2: power regulators, it has circuitry. All of those things use electricity.
[20:09] Speaker 2: Don't they generate their own electromagnetic noise?
[20:11] Speaker 3: You've just identified one of the most brutal engineering hurdles
[20:14] Speaker 3: in radio astronomy. Yes, all electronic devices generate internal noise.
[20:20] Speaker 3: It's called thermal noise or Johnson niquist noise. Okay, even
[20:24] Speaker 3: the electrons moving through the wires of the satellite's own
[20:28] Speaker 3: amplifier generate a tiny bit of scatic And because the
[20:31] Speaker 3: cosmic whisper is so incredibly weak, the microscopic electronic hum
[20:36] Speaker 3: of the satellite itself is actually louder than the signal
[20:39] Speaker 3: it's trying to measure.
[20:41] Speaker 2: Oh man, so the satellite risks just recording the sound
[20:44] Speaker 2: of its own digestion.
[20:45] Speaker 3: That's a gross way to put it.
[20:46] Speaker 2: But yes, the computer might think it's looking at the
[20:48] Speaker 2: dawn of time, but it's really just listening to its
[20:50] Speaker 2: own power supply. How do you solve that? You can't
[20:53] Speaker 2: just turn the power off.
[20:54] Speaker 3: No, you have to constantly measure the internal noise so
[20:57] Speaker 3: you can subtract.
[20:58] Speaker 2: It measure its own noise.
[21:00] Speaker 3: They do this using a piece of technology called a
[21:02] Speaker 3: Dick switch calibrator, named after the physicist Robert Dick who
[21:05] Speaker 3: invented the concept. It acts as a continuous self auditor
[21:09] Speaker 3: for the instrument.
[21:10] Speaker 2: How does a Dick switch actually work? In practice?
[21:13] Speaker 3: It works by rapidly alternating the input to the receiver
[21:17] Speaker 3: while the satellite is in the quiet zone behind the moon.
[21:20] Speaker 3: The switch will toggle back and forth thousands of times
[21:23] Speaker 3: a second between two things.
[21:24] Speaker 2: Okay, what are the two things?
[21:25] Speaker 3: First, it connects the receiver to the external antenna to
[21:28] Speaker 3: listen to the sky the science data right. Then a
[21:32] Speaker 3: fraction of a second later, it flips the connection away
[21:34] Speaker 3: from the sky and connects it to a built in
[21:37] Speaker 3: reference resistor inside the satellite.
[21:39] Speaker 2: What does looking at a resistor accomplish?
[21:42] Speaker 3: The resistor is a known stable source. The engineers know
[21:46] Speaker 3: exactly how much noise that specific resistor should produce at
[21:49] Speaker 3: a given temperature.
[21:49] Speaker 2: It's a baseline exactly.
[21:52] Speaker 3: By looking at the resistor, the satellite's computer essentially marries
[21:55] Speaker 3: its own internal electronic hum in real time. It takes
[21:58] Speaker 3: a baseline reading of its own static. Okay, and then
[22:01] Speaker 3: then the switch flips back to the sky. It records
[22:04] Speaker 3: the sky plus the internal static. Because it just measured
[22:07] Speaker 3: its own static a millisecond ago, the computer can mathematically
[22:11] Speaker 3: subtract the internal noise from the sky data.
[22:13] Speaker 2: Oh that is wild. I'm trying to find an analogy
[22:17] Speaker 2: for this. Is it similar to how active noise canceling
[22:20] Speaker 2: headphones work.
[22:21] Speaker 3: It's similar in spirit, yeah, where.
[22:23] Speaker 2: The microphone listens to the ambient drone of the airplane
[22:26] Speaker 2: engine and then the headphone produces an inverse sound wave
[22:30] Speaker 2: to cancel it out.
[22:31] Speaker 3: The intention is exactly the same, eliminating unwanted noise so
[22:35] Speaker 3: you can hear the music, but the physical mechanism is
[22:39] Speaker 3: slightly different. How So headphones use phase in version. They
[22:43] Speaker 3: play a sound that physically collides with the external noise
[22:46] Speaker 3: to destroy it in the air. Right, The dick switch
[22:49] Speaker 3: isn't broadcasting an anti noise into the circuitry. It is
[22:52] Speaker 3: purely a data processing trick.
[22:54] Speaker 2: So it's more like editing.
[22:55] Speaker 3: Yeah, it's more like taking a photograph with the lens
[22:58] Speaker 3: cap on to see where the hot pixels are on
[22:59] Speaker 3: the camera sensor, and then mathematically subtracting those hot pixels
[23:03] Speaker 3: from the final image you take of the landscape.
[23:05] Speaker 2: Ah. I see, it maps its own flaws and edits
[23:08] Speaker 2: them out of the final recording. It's constantly reminding itself
[23:11] Speaker 2: what silence looks like internally, so it doesn't accidentally log
[23:14] Speaker 2: its own heartbeat as a cosmic signal exactly.
[23:17] Speaker 3: And to make this complex switching and processing fit into
[23:20] Speaker 3: a suitcase. Cosmo Cube utilizes a state of the art
[23:23] Speaker 3: miniature radiometer. It relies on something called r F Systems
[23:27] Speaker 3: on chip or r FSCs.
[23:30] Speaker 2: Our F Systems on ship. Break that down for me.
[23:32] Speaker 3: Traditionally, a radio receiver involves multiple separate components. You have
[23:36] Speaker 3: an analog antenna, analog amplifiers, analog to digital converters to
[23:40] Speaker 3: turn the wave into data, and then separate computer processors
[23:43] Speaker 3: to analyze the data.
[23:44] Speaker 2: Sounds heavy, it is.
[23:46] Speaker 3: All those separate chips take up space, generate heat, and
[23:49] Speaker 3: consume power. An RFSSE integrates the high speed radio frequency
[23:53] Speaker 3: converters and the digital processing brains onto a single piece
[23:56] Speaker 3: of silicon.
[23:57] Speaker 2: Oh wow.
[23:58] Speaker 3: It condenses an entire rack of radio equipment into a
[24:00] Speaker 3: single microchip. That is how they meet the size and
[24:03] Speaker 3: power constraints of the SSTL twenty one platform.
[24:06] Speaker 2: But condensing all that sensitive equipment into a tiny box
[24:09] Speaker 2: introduces another problem, doesn't it.
[24:11] Speaker 3: The environment space is unforgiving.
[24:13] Speaker 2: Space is incredibly hostile. Lunar orbit is hostile. How do
[24:17] Speaker 2: we know the dick switch and these specialized chips won't
[24:19] Speaker 2: just freeze to death or fry.
[24:21] Speaker 3: Well, they don't know for sure yet. Which is why
[24:23] Speaker 3: aggressive testing is happening right now. The instrument development is
[24:27] Speaker 3: well underway. They're just doing math on whiteboards. They have
[24:30] Speaker 3: functioning lab prototypes.
[24:31] Speaker 2: Who's running that.
[24:32] Speaker 3: Doctor Will Granger of Stfcral Space, who is a co
[24:36] Speaker 3: author on the research, is leading the team responsible for
[24:39] Speaker 3: subjecting these delicate models to extreme environmental testing.
[24:43] Speaker 2: What kind of extremes are we talking about? In a
[24:45] Speaker 2: lunar orbit?
[24:46] Speaker 3: The temperature swings are violent when the satellite is on
[24:50] Speaker 3: the near side of the Moon exposed to the direct,
[24:53] Speaker 3: unfiltered radiation of the Sun. The exterior can reach boiling
[24:56] Speaker 3: temperatures ouch but the moment it crosses the terminat line
[25:00] Speaker 3: into the shadow of the far side the exact moment
[25:03] Speaker 3: it needs to turn on its delicate sensors to do
[25:05] Speaker 3: the science. The ambient temperature plummets instantly to deep freeze
[25:09] Speaker 3: levels one hundred degrees below.
[25:10] Speaker 2: Zero, and the internal hardware has to survive that thermal
[25:13] Speaker 2: shock every two hours DARKA.
[25:15] Speaker 3: Grangeris has explicitly highlighted this challenge. He noted that doing
[25:19] Speaker 3: ambitious science from a very small satellite and a challenging
[25:22] Speaker 3: environment requires incredibly clever design techniques.
[25:25] Speaker 2: So they are simulating this on Earth.
[25:27] Speaker 3: Yes, they are running intense thermal tests in their vacuum
[25:31] Speaker 3: chambers right now to ensure the payload can manage its
[25:34] Speaker 3: internal heat, survive the freezing cold, and maintain the precise
[25:39] Speaker 3: calibration needed for the dick switch to function.
[25:42] Speaker 2: It is genuinely a triumph of engineering. They are building
[25:45] Speaker 2: a self correcting, deep freeze proof heat resistance suitcase packed
[25:50] Speaker 2: with systems on a chip to listen to the dawn
[25:53] Speaker 2: of time.
[25:53] Speaker 3: It's quite a resume for a small box.
[25:55] Speaker 2: But let's say it works perfectly. Let's say the satellite
[25:58] Speaker 2: survives the thermal shock, the antenna on the dix which
[26:01] Speaker 2: subtracts the internal noise, and they managed to stalkpile one
[26:05] Speaker 2: thousand hours of pristine data from behind the Moon. Even then,
[26:09] Speaker 2: gathering the data is only half the battle.
[26:11] Speaker 3: Isn't it. It is because once that data is beamed
[26:14] Speaker 3: back to Earth, the engineer is handed over to the
[26:16] Speaker 3: astronomers and an entirely new mathematical nightmare begins.
[26:20] Speaker 2: More noise.
[26:21] Speaker 3: The hardware and space solves the environmental noise. The software
[26:25] Speaker 3: on Earth has to solve the astrophysical noise.
[26:27] Speaker 2: I thought the whole point of hiding behind the Moon
[26:29] Speaker 2: was to escape the noise.
[26:30] Speaker 3: We escaped Earth's noise. The FM radio stations and the
[26:34] Speaker 3: cell towers are blocked, but we didn't escape the galaxy.
[26:38] Speaker 3: The Milky Way, our own Milky Way galaxy is incredibly
[26:41] Speaker 3: loud in the radio spectrum. It produces what cosmologists call
[26:45] Speaker 3: foreground noise.
[26:46] Speaker 2: What is generating radio waves in our galaxy?
[26:49] Speaker 3: Mostly it is something called synchrotron radiation.
[26:52] Speaker 2: Synchrotron radiation right, our.
[26:54] Speaker 3: Galaxy has a magnetic field and there are high energy
[26:57] Speaker 3: electrons constantly zooming through it. When these electrons spiral around
[27:01] Speaker 3: the magnetic field lines, they emit a massive amount of
[27:04] Speaker 3: radio waves, just naturally, just naturally. And here is the
[27:07] Speaker 3: truly depressing part for the astronomers. This foreground noise from
[27:12] Speaker 3: the Milky Way is roughly ten thousand to one hundred
[27:15] Speaker 3: thousand times brighter than the faint twenty one centimeter signal
[27:18] Speaker 3: from the dark Ages.
[27:19] Speaker 2: One hundred thousand times louder. Yes, So filtering out our
[27:23] Speaker 2: galaxy to see the early Universe, it's like trying to
[27:26] Speaker 2: study a very dim, distant firefly through a window, but
[27:30] Speaker 2: the window is covered in thick layers of dirt, and
[27:32] Speaker 2: it is also perfectly reflecting the bright, glaring lights of
[27:35] Speaker 2: our own living room.
[27:36] Speaker 3: That's exactly it.
[27:37] Speaker 2: You have to somehow look mathematically past the reflection and
[27:41] Speaker 2: the dirt to see the single bug miles away.
[27:43] Speaker 3: That is a very accurate assessment of the difficulty. You
[27:47] Speaker 3: are looking through the glowing, noisy, chaotic disk of the
[27:50] Speaker 3: Milky Way to see the faint background of the universe.
[27:53] Speaker 2: So how do they clean the window? How do you
[27:55] Speaker 2: separate the firefly from the reflection.
[27:57] Speaker 3: The Cosmic Cube team intends to use highly advanced Baesian
[28:01] Speaker 3: statistical methods.
[28:02] Speaker 2: Bayesian statistics I hear that term thrown around a lot
[28:05] Speaker 2: in data science, but how does it actually apply to
[28:08] Speaker 2: peeling away a galaxy.
[28:10] Speaker 3: Bayesian probability, at its core, is about updating what you
[28:14] Speaker 3: believe based on new evidence combined with what you already know.
[28:18] Speaker 3: Let's start with what we already know the prior.
[28:20] Speaker 2: In statistical terms, Okay, what's our prior?
[28:22] Speaker 3: We know that the synchrotron radiation from the Milky Way
[28:25] Speaker 3: is very smooth across different frequencies. If you look at
[28:28] Speaker 3: ten megaherts, eleven megahertz, twelve megaherds, the noise from the
[28:31] Speaker 3: galaxy changes very gradually and predictably.
[28:34] Speaker 2: Okay, the galaxy is a smooth hum, what about the
[28:37] Speaker 2: signal we want?
[28:38] Speaker 3: The twenty one centimeter signal from the Dark Ages is
[28:40] Speaker 3: not smooth. As the dark Ages progressed and the first
[28:44] Speaker 3: stars eventually started to form, the temperature of the hydrogen
[28:47] Speaker 3: gas changed, which caused the intensity of the radio signal
[28:51] Speaker 3: to dip and rise in a very specific bumpy pattern
[28:54] Speaker 3: across different frequencies.
[28:56] Speaker 2: Ah, so the noise is smooth, but the signal is
[29:00] Speaker 2: bumpy exactly.
[29:01] Speaker 3: So back on Earth, the computers run these Bayesian algorithms.
[29:04] Speaker 3: They essentially say, to the data, find the massive, smooth,
[29:09] Speaker 3: predictable curve of the Milky Way, and carefully subtract it
[29:12] Speaker 3: whatever bumpy, tiny fluctuations are left over. That's the dark Ages.
[29:16] Speaker 2: So they aren't just broadly turning down the volume of
[29:19] Speaker 2: the whole recording. No, it's like having an audio recording
[29:22] Speaker 2: of a beautiful symphony where someone in the front row
[29:24] Speaker 2: is coughing constantly. Beaesian math doesn't just lower the overall volume.
[29:29] Speaker 2: It mathematically models the exact acoustic signature of a human
[29:32] Speaker 2: cough and then subtracts only those specific frequencies out of
[29:35] Speaker 2: the track, leaving the violins perfectly intact.
[29:38] Speaker 3: That captures the essence of it perfectly, but they have
[29:40] Speaker 3: to be incredibly careful. If they subtract even a tiny
[29:44] Speaker 3: fraction of a percent incorrectly, they could accidentally erase the
[29:47] Speaker 3: dark Age's signal entirely, or worse, create a false signal
[29:52] Speaker 3: that looks like the dark Ages but is actually just.
[29:55] Speaker 2: A math error that would be devastating.
[29:57] Speaker 3: To prevent this, they combine these Beajan methods within hence
[30:00] Speaker 3: computer simulations and the in flight measurements of the satellite's antenna.
[30:04] Speaker 3: They model exactly how the antenna's metal responds to different
[30:07] Speaker 3: parts in the sky, map its quirks, and include that
[30:10] Speaker 3: in the subtraction algorithm. It is an act of painstaking
[30:13] Speaker 3: digital excavation.
[30:14] Speaker 2: This is a monumental amount of work. We are launching
[30:17] Speaker 2: suitcases to the Moon, dodging the ionosphere, battling extreme temperatures,
[30:22] Speaker 2: and inventing new math to scrub the Milky Way out
[30:25] Speaker 2: of our data.
[30:26] Speaker 3: It's a lot which.
[30:27] Speaker 2: Leads me to the ultimate question of the mission. What
[30:30] Speaker 2: is the grand scientific prize? Why are we working this
[30:33] Speaker 2: hard just to hear hydrogen humming in the dark.
[30:35] Speaker 3: Because the hydrogen isn't the final answer. The hydrogen is
[30:38] Speaker 3: just the tracer. It is the ink that allows us
[30:41] Speaker 3: to see the invisible paper. Okay, the real prize, the
[30:44] Speaker 3: ultimate ghosts they are hunting, is dark matter.
[30:47] Speaker 2: Dark matter, the invisible stuff that supposedly makes up most
[30:51] Speaker 2: of the mass of the universe, but that we can't
[30:54] Speaker 2: actually see, touch, or interact with.
[30:56] Speaker 3: That's the one to understand why this is the holy
[30:59] Speaker 3: grail of the mission. We need to look at how
[31:02] Speaker 3: we know dark matter exists in the first place.
[31:05] Speaker 2: Right.
[31:06] Speaker 3: Historically, astronomers like Fritz Wicki and Vera Rubin looked at
[31:10] Speaker 3: galaxies rotating. They calculated how much visible mass was in
[31:14] Speaker 3: the galaxy all the stars and gas they could see.
[31:17] Speaker 2: They counted the stars basically right, but.
[31:20] Speaker 3: When they measured how fast the galaxies were spinning, the
[31:23] Speaker 3: physics broke down. The galaxies were spinning so fast that
[31:27] Speaker 3: they should have literally ripped themselves apart and flung their
[31:29] Speaker 3: stars out into deep space.
[31:31] Speaker 2: Because there wasn't enough gravity from the visible stars to
[31:34] Speaker 2: hold the spinning galaxy together exactly.
[31:37] Speaker 3: The visible matter didn't have enough gravitational glue. There had
[31:40] Speaker 3: to be an enormous amount of invisible mass dark matter
[31:43] Speaker 3: surrounding the galaxy, providing the extra gravity needed to hold
[31:47] Speaker 3: it all together.
[31:47] Speaker 2: And it doesn't emit light.
[31:49] Speaker 3: Dark matter doesn't interact with light at all. It doesn't
[31:52] Speaker 3: emit it absorb it, or reflect it. It only interacts
[31:56] Speaker 3: with the universe through gravity.
[31:58] Speaker 2: Okay, so we know dark matter because it holds modern
[32:01] Speaker 2: galaxies together today. But what does that have to do
[32:05] Speaker 2: with the cosmic dark Ages thirteen point five billion years ago?
[32:09] Speaker 3: Because without dark matter, the Dark Ages would have never ended. Really,
[32:14] Speaker 3: think about the state of the universe right after the
[32:16] Speaker 3: Big Bang. It is expanding incredibly rapidly. All that neutral
[32:21] Speaker 3: hydrogen gas is spreading out, getting thinner and.
[32:23] Speaker 2: Thinner, drifting apart.
[32:24] Speaker 3: If the universe only contained regular matter the hydrogen callon,
[32:29] Speaker 3: it wouldn't have had enough gravitational pool to fight against
[32:31] Speaker 3: the expansion of the universe. The gas would have just
[32:33] Speaker 3: kept thinning out forever.
[32:35] Speaker 2: And if it things out forever, it never clumps together
[32:37] Speaker 2: to form stars.
[32:38] Speaker 3: Precisely, no stars, no galaxies, no planet's, no carbon, no us.
[32:42] Speaker 3: But because dark matter was there, and because dark matter
[32:45] Speaker 3: outweighs regular matter roughly five to one, it's gravity acted
[32:49] Speaker 3: as an anchor.
[32:50] Speaker 2: It pulled things back.
[32:51] Speaker 3: The dark matter began to pool together into invisible clumps,
[32:55] Speaker 3: creating massive gravitational potholes in the fabric of the.
[32:58] Speaker 2: Universe, and the regular hydrogen gas just fell into the
[33:00] Speaker 2: potholes it did.
[33:01] Speaker 3: The invisible scaffold of dark matter dragged the hydrogen gas
[33:04] Speaker 3: along with it. It pulled the gas into tighter and
[33:07] Speaker 3: tighter clumps. As the gas compressed inside these dark matter wells,
[33:12] Speaker 3: it heated up. The pressure built and built, until finally
[33:15] Speaker 3: the temperature was high enough to ignite nuclear.
[33:17] Speaker 2: Fusion and boom, cosmic dawn. The first stars turn on.
[33:22] Speaker 3: Yes, dark matter is the literal architect of the cosmic dawn. Wow.
[33:27] Speaker 3: Professor de Leira Aceto explains that by detecting the twenty
[33:31] Speaker 3: one centimeter emission from the hydrogen during the dark ages,
[33:35] Speaker 3: we aren't just looking at the gas. We were watching
[33:37] Speaker 3: the gas flow into the dark matter potholes. We're watching
[33:40] Speaker 3: the structure form. We will hopefully be able to trace
[33:43] Speaker 3: how dark matter exerted its gravitational pull, mapped out the
[33:46] Speaker 3: structure of the universe and triggered the formation of the
[33:49] Speaker 3: very first stars. We are trying to map the invisible scaffold,
[33:52] Speaker 3: that built reality as we know it.
[33:54] Speaker 2: That is awe inspiring. We are looking at the foundational
[33:57] Speaker 2: blueprints of the universe. We are so if we have
[34:00] Speaker 2: the technology to do this, the SSTAIL twenty one platform,
[34:03] Speaker 2: the Dick switch, the Bayesian algorithms, and we have the
[34:06] Speaker 2: perfect quiet location in the Fortress of Solitude behind the Moon.
[34:11] Speaker 2: Why the rush? Why is there so much pressure to
[34:14] Speaker 2: get this fifty million euro mission launched immediately? The universe
[34:19] Speaker 2: isn't going anywhere.
[34:20] Speaker 3: The universe isn't going anywhere, but the silence of the
[34:22] Speaker 3: Moon is about to vanish. We are currently witnessing an
[34:26] Speaker 3: unprecedented geopolitical and commercial race for lunar real estate, and
[34:31] Speaker 3: that race introduces a thrilling but genuinely terrifying element of
[34:35] Speaker 3: urgency to the Cosmicube mission. The picking clock is real terrifying.
[34:40] Speaker 2: In what way are we word someone else is going
[34:42] Speaker 2: to map the dark ages? First?
[34:43] Speaker 3: No, it's not a competition over the science. It's a
[34:45] Speaker 3: competition over the environment. The Fortress of Solitude is under
[34:48] Speaker 3: imminent threat. Thus the far side of the Moon may
[34:51] Speaker 3: not stay quiet for much longer. The United States, through
[34:54] Speaker 3: the Artemis program as well as China, India, the European
[34:58] Speaker 3: Space Agency and numerous private commercial companies are all actively
[35:02] Speaker 3: planning multiple missions to the lunar surface and lunar orbit.
[35:06] Speaker 2: We're going back to the Moon in a big way. Rovers, habitats,
[35:10] Speaker 2: resource extraction.
[35:11] Speaker 3: Yes, we are talking about a permanent, sustained human presence.
[35:17] Speaker 3: But what does a permanent human presence require. It requires communication. Oh,
[35:21] Speaker 3: of course, you cannot land a rover on the far
[35:24] Speaker 3: side of the Moon or build a habitat there without
[35:26] Speaker 3: a way to talk to it. The Moon blocks radio signals,
[35:30] Speaker 3: so a rover on the far side can't talk directly.
[35:32] Speaker 2: To Earth because the Moon is in the way exactly.
[35:35] Speaker 2: So they have to build a work around.
[35:36] Speaker 3: They have to build lunar relay satellites. They will put
[35:38] Speaker 3: a network of telecommunication satellites in orbit around the Moon,
[35:42] Speaker 3: similar to our GPS and cell networks on Earth. Oh wow,
[35:45] Speaker 3: These satellites will act as cell towers, bouncing signals from
[35:48] Speaker 3: the far side rovers up to orbit and then back
[35:51] Speaker 3: to Earth.
[35:51] Speaker 2: Oh no, I see where this is going.
[35:53] Speaker 3: As soon as you establish a communications network on the
[35:55] Speaker 3: far side of the Moon, or fill lunar orbit with
[35:58] Speaker 3: telemetry relays, the pristine radio silence is broken permanently.
[36:03] Speaker 2: It's just like Earth all over again.
[36:05] Speaker 3: It is, and the Moon has no atmosphere, no ionosphere
[36:08] Speaker 3: to absorb the radiation. A single relay satellite broadcasting on
[36:12] Speaker 3: the far side will act like a blinding spotlight in
[36:16] Speaker 3: an otherwise pitch black room.
[36:18] Speaker 2: That's devastating.
[36:19] Speaker 3: The one place in our entire solar neighborhood that is
[36:23] Speaker 3: quiet enough to hear the thirteen point five billion year
[36:26] Speaker 3: old whisper will be polluted with our own telemetry chatter.
[36:30] Speaker 2: Are we seriously already at risk of noise polluting the
[36:33] Speaker 2: Moon before we've even managed to build a single permanent base.
[36:35] Speaker 3: There, I'm afraid.
[36:36] Speaker 2: So it's like we are paving over an irreplaceable cosmic
[36:40] Speaker 2: archaeological site just to build a parking lot and put
[36:43] Speaker 2: up a cell tower.
[36:44] Speaker 3: That is a very apt, if tragic, were to look
[36:46] Speaker 3: at it. The far side of the Moon is a
[36:48] Speaker 3: finite natural resource. It's radio silence is a unique environmental
[36:52] Speaker 3: feature that we have entirely taken for granted because we've
[36:55] Speaker 3: never been out there enough to ruin it. But that
[36:57] Speaker 3: era is ending. This is why the Cosmic Cube team
[37:00] Speaker 3: is pushing so hard pulling together international collaborations.
[37:04] Speaker 2: They are literally trying to beat the bulldozers exactly.
[37:07] Speaker 3: They are targeting a launch within the next five years.
[37:10] Speaker 3: It is a massive collaborative effort to slip through this
[37:14] Speaker 3: closing window.
[37:15] Speaker 2: Who is all involved.
[37:16] Speaker 3: You have UK Space Agency funding driving the project forward.
[37:20] Speaker 3: You have the scientific leadership stemming from Cambridge. You have
[37:23] Speaker 3: vital academic partnerships with institutions like Portsmouth University and the
[37:28] Speaker 3: crucial hardware testing happening at STFCRIL Space.
[37:32] Speaker 2: A huge team.
[37:33] Speaker 3: You even have wider EU participation with countries like Malta contributing.
[37:38] Speaker 3: They are pooling their resources to get there first.
[37:40] Speaker 2: It's a race against our own inevitable progress. Professor de
[37:44] Speaker 2: lea Esato mentioned that this could be a real UK
[37:46] Speaker 2: success story, bringing together the hardware, the software, the technology
[37:49] Speaker 2: and the implementation all from the UK and its partners
[37:53] Speaker 2: to answer one of the most profound questions in physics.
[37:56] Speaker 3: It would be a monumental achievement. But the subtext of
[37:59] Speaker 3: that is very clear. They have to execute this before
[38:02] Speaker 3: the window of silence closes forever. Once the lunar network
[38:05] Speaker 3: is online, the dark ages will be lost in the
[38:08] Speaker 3: static of human expansion.
[38:10] Speaker 2: It really is a profound journey we've just charted. Let's
[38:13] Speaker 2: recap this whole endeavor. We started thirteen point five billion
[38:17] Speaker 2: years ago in a universe filled with absolutely nothing but cold, dark,
[38:22] Speaker 2: silent hydrogen gas slowly being dragged into clumps by the
[38:26] Speaker 2: invisible gravity of dark matter. We fast forward to today,
[38:30] Speaker 2: where a brilliant team of scientists is trying to build
[38:32] Speaker 2: a suitcase sized satellite loaded with noise canceling hardware to
[38:36] Speaker 2: hear that ancient process.
[38:38] Speaker 3: That's the plan, and they have to.
[38:39] Speaker 2: Hide this tiny satellite behind the immense mass of the
[38:42] Speaker 2: Moon just to find a few minutes of quiet before
[38:44] Speaker 2: our own rush to conquer space drowns out the sound
[38:47] Speaker 2: of our own cosmic birth.
[38:49] Speaker 3: And if we bring this all the way back home
[38:51] Speaker 3: to you, the listener, it is always worth remembering why
[38:54] Speaker 3: this abstract physics actually matters.
[38:56] Speaker 2: Yeah, why do we care?
[38:57] Speaker 3: Every single star you see when you look up the
[39:00] Speaker 3: night sky, every galaxy churning in the deep universe, and
[39:03] Speaker 3: the very carbon, oxygen, and iron atoms that currently make
[39:06] Speaker 3: up your own body, all of it was set in
[39:08] Speaker 3: motion during this exact hidden era.
[39:11] Speaker 2: That's wild to think about.
[39:13] Speaker 3: The slow gravitational dance between hydrogen and dark matter during
[39:17] Speaker 3: the cosmic dark ages is what created the fundamental conditions
[39:20] Speaker 3: for you to exist. Cosmo Cue isn't just looking at
[39:23] Speaker 3: old gas. It is looking at humanity's absolute origin.
[39:27] Speaker 2: Story, which leaves me with a lingering thought today, a
[39:30] Speaker 2: bit of a provocative question for all of us, tomul over,
[39:32] Speaker 2: as we look up at the Moon tonight, If the
[39:35] Speaker 2: far side of the Moon is truly our only shield
[39:37] Speaker 2: against our own noise, our only remaining fortress of solitude,
[39:42] Speaker 2: and we are rapidly expanding our technology into space, pushing
[39:45] Speaker 2: forward with commercial lunar bases and thousands of satellite constellations,
[39:49] Speaker 2: what other ancient, faint cosmic signals will we permanently deafen
[39:52] Speaker 2: ourselves to as humanity becomes a truly multiplanetary species, as
[39:57] Speaker 2: we build our future among the stars, will our own
[40:00] Speaker 2: own technological progress eventually blind us to our origins

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