Fifty years after U.S. astronaut Neil Armstrong became the first person to walk on the Moon, China landed a rover on the far side of the Moon last week for the first time in history.
Jack Burns, an astrophysicist at CU Boulder, sees the landing as the dawn of a new space age. Burns talked with Colorado Matters about the accomplishment, and what could be next when it comes to exploring the far side of the Moon.
Burns is now leading a mission to develop a satellite called DAPPER, which stands for Dark Ages Polarimetry Pathfinder, with the ultimate goal of placing an array of telescopes on the far side of the Moon to study the origins of the universe. The far side of the Moon is uniquely suited for deep space research because it's dark and it blocks interference from radio transmissions from the Earth.
