Tiny satellite will use the dark side of the Moon to eavesdrop on whispers from the early universe

Tiny satellite will use the dark side of the Moon to eavesdrop on whispers from the early universe Sarah Collins Fri, 08/14/2026 - 16:00 An international team of scientists, led by the University of Cambridge, will use the dark side of the Moon as a ‘shield’ so that the satellite – called CosmoCube – can block out all the noise from Earth and listen for a faint whisper from the very early universe. This whisper, known as the 21-centimetre line, is a signal emitted by hydrogen atoms in the period between the afterglow of the Big Bang and Cosmic Dawn, when nuclear fusion lit up the first stars.