Binary Neutron Stars from the Moon: Early Warnings and Precision Science for the Artemis Era

Binary neutron star (BNS) mergers are unique probes of matter at extreme density and standard candles of cosmic expansion. The only event observed in both gravitational waves (GW) and electromagnetic radiation, GW170817, revealed the origin of heavy elements, constrained the neutron star equation of state, and provided an independent measurement of the Hubble constant. Current detectors such as LIGO, Virgo, and KAGRA capture only the final minutes of inspiral, offering limited advance warning and coarse sky localization. In this study, we present a comprehensive analysis of BNS signals for lunar-based GW observatories (LILA, LGWA, GLOC) envisioned within NASA's Artemis and Commercial Lunar Payload Services programs, and compare their performance with current and next-generation Earth-based facilities. For GW170817-like sources, we find that lunar detectors can forecast mergers weeks to months in advance and localize them to areas as small as 0.01 deg2, far beyond the reach of terrestrial detectors. We further show that lunar observatories would detect about 100 well-localized mergers annually, enabling coordinated multi-messenger follow-up. When combined in a multi-band LIGO+Moon network, sky-localization areas shrink to just a few arcsec2, comparable to the field of view of the JWST. Multi-band parameter estimation also delivers dramatic gains: neutron star mass-ratio uncertainties can be measured with ∼0.1% precision, spin constraints to 0.001% with luminosity distance errors to 1% level.