Extremely Large Telescope: A Progress Report
At 39 metres in diameter, the mirror of Europe’s Extremely Large Telescope (ELT) will be the largest in the world. Scientists plan to begin serious observations with it around 2025,…
Astronomy in the 2030s
No one can predict what discoveries will be made in the 2030s, but we can say with some certainty what space-based telescopes will be used to make those discoveries. That…
We Are Not Alone: Nobel laureate in Austin
“Most modern scientists think we’re not alone,” said Dr. John Mather, winner of the Nobel Prize in Physics in 2006. He was referring to intelligent life elsewhere in the universe,…
Gravity Waves Now Part of Pop Culture: Kip Thorne
Last year he won the Nobel Prize in Physics for one of the greatest discoveries in human history. Even though it took more than a century between the time Einstein…
Why Don’t I Have a Nobel Prize?
In his role as Vice President for Research at the University of Texas, Dr. Daniel Jaffe has developed instruments used to expand our knowledge of the universe. Why, he asks,…
The Showman of Astronomy
In every generation there is a populariser of science. The first that drew big crowds on a regular basis was Sir Humphrey Davy, whose lectures in London two centuries ago…