Anže Slosar

Yeah, so Dark Ages signal, it's something very exciting.

I would call it like a platonic ideal or something where the field is going towards, something you'd want to see in, I would say, 50 years.

So Lucianite will not see it, but it's a pathfinder for seeing Dark Ages, okay?

So dark ages refers to this particular epoch in the evolution universe where kind of this initial hot plasma, this soup of protons and electrons and so on has kind of cooled down enough that we have just neutral hydrogen and nothing more.

And because it's so early that we have no stars, no stars have already turned on, this is a very, very pristine universe, right?

which we can explain just using fundamental physics, like general relativity, atomic physics, thermodynamics, stuff like that.

We can make extreme precise predictions.

Because once the stars turn on and you get galaxies and planets and so on, the universe becomes a very complicated place.

It's like weather.

But before it starts its own, if you could measure that epoch, you could really make some really fundamental measurements of the universe.

Now, unfortunately, as I said, Lucy Knight will not see dark ages because there are kind of foregrounds which are much brighter than this thing from our own galaxy and other galaxies shining.

But it will kind of enable us to basically demonstrate that far side of the moon is really as good as a place to make observations that people think it is, right?

People have been thinking it's the best place to make these measurements, but nobody has actually done it.

For sure, for sure.

Basically, Luce Knight, it's a pathfinder, and we're already thinking about where to go next.

And the natural way is to build up so-called interferometers, where you kind of put many individual elements of a radio telescope and kind of combine those signals so they start acting like a big dish.

However, you know, you eat the elephant in small pieces.

So that's why we start with a pie finder.

And if it works, you will learn a lot about how to make these observations, how to survive the lunar night, how to operate the telescope, what the big problems are.

There are still fundamental unknowns, like, you know, maybe they're micrometeorites.