The last 50 years of astronomy have been one of the real highlights of science. I’ve been privileged to be part of this huge cosmic exploration.

About Martin Rees

"I'm the UK's Astronomer Royal and Emeritus Professor of Cosmology and Astrophysics at the University of Cambridge.

My research is mainly on trying to understand our universe around us. Aside from astronomy and space science, I’ve been very much engaged with science policy, particularly how modern technology can be controlled so that we can harness its benefits but avoid its downsides."

Why we study astronomy

I’m an astronomer, and I think there are four reasons we do astronomy. The first is simply exploration, to find out what’s out there. The second is to make sense of what we see, to understand it in terms of the laws of physics and to perhaps discover new laws of physics. The third is to understand cosmic evolution: was there a beginning, and if so, then how have things evolved from that beginning to the amazing cosmos we see around us and are a part of? And that leads to a final reason: the mystery of why things exist, and why the universe is the way it is.

All these things are part of astronomy and what I do, and of course, pure thought doesn’t get you very far. But thanks to improved instruments, we’ve made huge progress. The last 50 years of astronomy have been one of the real highlights of science, up there with the standard model of particle physics and the double helix. I’ve been privileged to be part of this huge cosmic exploration.

Key Points

• Great achievements have been made in the last 50 years of astronomy, such as the corroboration of the Big Bang and the realisation that our solar system is not unique.
• We can understand what the universe was like when it was a nanosecond old, but the very first nanosecond itself is still speculative, and many key features of our universe may have been determined then.
• The chemical elements in our universe are made from star explosions – we are the ashes of dead stars.