Look up in the night sky and see our universe and its continued expansion and glimpse magic. Astronomer Andrew Connolly focuses on understanding the evolution of our universe, especially from the data expected from the ginormous 3.2 gigapixel camera under construction in Chile.
Connolly provides an accessible and fascinating primer on his research in this TED talk, recorded in March 2014. Here’s why it’s important, in Connolly’s words:
In the last five years, NASA has discovered over 1,000 planetary systems around nearby stars, but the systems we’re finding aren’t much like our own solar system, and one of the questions we face is is it just that we haven’t been looking hard enough or is there something special or unusual about how our solar system formed? And if we want to answer that question, we have to know and understand the history of our solar system in detail, and it’s the details that are crucial.
Watch and be amazed:
Image above of asteroids, from Andrew Connolly TEDTalk video