We were delighted to host John Richer at CSMS for a lecture last week who is a Professor of Astrophysics from the University of Cambridge.
Professor Richer enthralled the students with stories about his research into star formation. He talked the students through one of the biggest problems to face astrophysicists which is that if you want to get more and more accurate images of distant stars and galaxies you need larger and larger telescopes. In fact to get the most detailed images you would need a telescope 12 kilometers wide! He also explained how physicists have managed to solve this problem by using lots of smaller telescopes working together.
The audience asked lots of questions of Professor Richer and he has no doubt inspired many of the students to find out more about this amazing field.