Robert Smith is a professor at the University of Alberta and historian to JWST since 2002
As James Webb Space Telescope beams back images from the edge of space and time, space historian Robert Smith recalls some of the decisions made to bring the $10bn NASA project to fruition. David Stuart reports
The Expanding Aperture Segmented Telescope will greatly extend China's optical astronomy capability. (Image: Peking University)
The new instrument is intended to narrow the current gap in optical astronomy capability between China and the rest of the world
Top view of the ILMT showing the liquid mercury mirror covered by a thin mylar film. Credit: ARIES, Department of Science and Technology, India
Built by astronomers from India, Belgium and Canada, the instrument employs a four-metre-diameter rotating mirror made up of a thin film of liquid mercury
Credit: NASA
The EU-funded PULSAR project aimed to create a fully autonomous robotic assembly system that could construct the primary mirror of a telescope from separate parts in orbit
Organoid imaged with Andor’s desktop confocal microscope system, the BC43. Credit: Andor
As microscopes become ever more powerful, a growing band of businesses are racing to make the latest technologies more accessible and more affordable, reports Rebecca Pool
Illustration of a three-dimensional crystal with various types of confining centres. (a) Crystal with four confining centres, each trapping waves (yellow) in all three dimensions simultaneously. (b) Crystal with a linear confining centre where waves can propagate in one dimension, analogous to an optical fibre. (c) Crystal with a planar confining centre where waves can propagate in two dimensions, analogous to a 2D electron gas. (Image: Vos et al.)
Newly discovered fundamental rules have been embedded into software to dramatically optimise the design of photonic integrated circuits
