What NEW SCIENCE Would We Discover with a Moon Telescope?

PBS Member Stations rely on viewers like you. To support your local station, go to

Sign Up on Patreon to get access to the Space Time Discord!

In order to see the faint light from objects in deepest space, astronomers go to the darkest places on the planet. In order to listen to their quite radio signals, they head as far from any radio-noisy humans as possible. But there’s nowhere on the earth, or even orbiting the Earth, that’s far enough to hear to the faint radio hum from the time before stars. In fact, we may need to build a giant radio telescope in the quietest place in the solar system—the far side of the moon.

Check out the Space Time Merch Store

Sign up for the mailing list to get episode notifications and hear special announcements!

Search the Entire Space Time Library Here

Hosted by Matt O'Dowd

Written by Matt Caplan & Matt O'Dowd

Post Production by Leonardo Scholzer, Yago Ballarini, Adriano Leal & Stephanie Faria

Directed by Andrew Kornhaber

Associate Producer: Bahar Gholipour

Executive Producers: Eric Brown & Andrew Kornhaber

Executive in Charge for PBS: Maribel Lopez

Director of Programming for PBS: Gabrielle Ewing

Assistant Director of Programming for PBS: John Campbell

Spacetime is produced by Kornhaber Brown for PBS Digital Studios.

This program is produced by Kornhaber Brown, which is solely responsible for its content.

© 2023 PBS. All rights reserved.

End Credits Music by J.R.S. Schattenberg

Space Time Was Made Possible In Part By:

Big Bang Sponsor

Bryce Fort

Peter Barrett

David Neumann

Sean Maddox

Alexander Tamas

Morgan Hough

Juan Benet

Vinnie Falco

Fabrice Eap

Mark Rosenthal

Quasar Sponsor

Glenn Sugden

Alex Kern

Ethan Cohen

Stephen Wilcox

Mark Heising

Hypernova Sponsor

Stephen Spidle

Chris Webb

Ivari Tölp

Zachary Wilson

Kenneth See

Gregory Forfa

Bradley Voorhees

Scott Gorlick

Paul Stehr-Green

Ben Delo

Scott Gray

Антон Кочков

Robert Ilardi

John R. Slavik

Mathew Handugan

Donal Botkin

Edmund Fokschaner

chuck zegar

Jordan Young

Daniel Muzquiz

Gamma Ray Burst Sponsors

Koen Wilde

Nicolas Katsantonis

Robin Bayley

Piotr Sarnicki

Massimiliano Pala

Thomas Nielson

Joe Pavlovic

Ryan McGaughy

Chuck Lukaszewski

Edward Hodapp

Cole B Combs

Andrea Galvagni

Jerry Thomas

Nikhil Sharma

Ryan Moser

John Anderson

David Giltinan

Scott Hannum

Bradley Ulis

Craig Falls

Kane Holbrook

Ross Story

Teng Guo

Mason Dillon

Matt Langford

Harsh Khandhadia

Thomas Tarler

Susan Albee

Frank Walker

Matt Quinn

Michael Lev

Terje Vold

James Trimmier

Jeremy Soller

Andre Stechert

Paul Wood

Joe Moreira

Kent Durham

Ramon Nogueira

The Mad Mechanic

Ellis Hall

John H. Austin, Jr.

Diana S Poljar

Faraz Khan

Almog Cohen

Daniel Jennings

Cameron Sampson

Russ Creech

Jeremy Reed

David Johnston

Michael Barton

Andrew Mann

Isaac Suttell

Oliver Flanagan

Bleys Goodson

Robert Walter

Mark Delagasse

Mark Daniel Cohen

Shane Calimlim

Eric Kiebler

Craig Stonaha

Frederic Simon

Dmitri McGuiness

John Robinson

Jim Hudson

Alex Gan

David Barnholdt

David Neal

John Funai

Bradley Jenkins

Vlad Shipulin

Cody Brumfield

Thomas Dougherty

King Zeckendorff

Dan Warren

Joseph Salomone

Patrick Sutton

Dean Faulk