Monthly Meeting December – Big Science From a Little Country

Speaker: Professor Richard Easther

 

Doing astronomy is as easy as stepping out and looking up. However, ever since Stonehenge astronomy has been at the forefront of what is now called “big science” — branches of knowledge whose development relies on large, shared research facilities rather than individual laboratories. Two examples of this are the European Space Agency’s LISA mission which is slated for launch in the early 2030s, and the Legacy Survey of Space and Time – or LSST – which is currently getting underway at the new Vera Rubin Observatory.   New Zealand scientists (including me and my group) are contributing to LISA and the LSST and I will explain what we hope that this will tell us about the universe. And I’ll talk about how little countries like New Zealand can contribute to big projects, how we can get involved, and what we get out of it.