Institute of Astronomy Cambridge

How well do we really understand the Universe?

95% of it — dark matter and dark energy — remains fundamentally unexplained, and a growing set of tensions in the data is prompting a serious question: is our standard model of cosmology beginning to break?

The Kavli Institute for Cosmology, Cambridge is delighted to host a public discussion with three world-leading cosmologists — Prof. George Efstathiou, Prof. Wendy Freedman, and Prof. Risa Wechsler — exploring the cutting-edge surveys that could resolve these puzzles, or deepen them.

📅 Tuesday 8 September 2026, 6–7pm
📍 Ray Dolby Centre, Cambridge
Free to attend. Booking via Eventbrite:

www.eventbrite.co.uk

Our 1909 Professor Hiranya Peiris brilliantly explains in Nature why the proposed cuts to particle physics and astronomy will be so damaging:

Discovery is not the opposite of application - Nature Reviews Physics Restructuring research funding as a choice between discovery and application gets the economics wrong, the evidence wrong and the people wrong.

IoA researchers have produced the most detailed study yet of the four planets orbiting Barnard's Star — our Sun's nearest neighbour after Alpha Centauri — finding them to be tidally locked, and rich in a mineral that makes them poor at retaining water, rendering them utterly uninhabitable.

https://www.ast.cam.ac.uk/news/astronomers-find-nearby-planets-be-small-strange-and-utterly-uninhabitable

Next week, Cambridge cosmologists head to London for the Royal Society's Summer Science Exhibition!

From 30 June–5 July, the Kavli Institute for Cosmology will be at Carlton House Terrace with our Simons Observatory exhibit — exploring how we're using the Cosmic Microwave Background to uncover clues about the very first moments of the Universe.

Free and open to the public. Come say hello! 🔭

https://royalsociety.org/science-events-and-lectures/summer-science-exhibition/

IoA postdoc Dr Emilie Hertig has been selected as runner-up for the 2025 RAS Michael Penston Thesis Prize for her PhD thesis 'Probes of cosmic inflation: from the CMB to quantum analogues'.

Congratulations Emilie!

2025 Thesis Prize winners announced drupal-media[data-view-mode=half_page_width] { display: inline-block; width: 50%; } The Royal Astronomical Society is delighted to announce the winners of its prizes...

Professor of Astrophysics (1909) Hiranya Peiris has published a piece in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists on a structural gap in current AI safety frameworks — one that Forbes this week paired with Pope Leo XIV's encyclical on AI as two defining texts on the moment we're in.

Prof. Peiris's article: https://thebulletin.org/2026/05/ai-can-chart-a-course-to-disaster-faster-than-humans-can-notice/

Piece in Forbes: https://www.forbes.com/sites/martinwhittaker/2026/05/28/business-leaders-hold-the-pen-on-ais-next-chapter/

Business Leaders Hold The Pen On AI’s Next Chapter Leaders stand at an AI crossroads where their decisions will define the future, shaping innovation, risk and public trust in the years ahead.

IoA alumna and science educator Dr Sarah Crick launches her first astronomy book for children at the IoA on 4th July. Get tickets here:

Mira's Moon Book Launch Events | Hook & Cambridge 2026 Celebrate the launch of Mira's Moon at family fun events in Hook, Hampshire (20 June) and Cambridge (4 July). Space activities, storytelling and a copy of the book included.

How is the James Webb Space Telescope transforming our view of the early universe?

Join Prof. Richard Ellis for "Beyond Hubble: Studying the Earliest Galaxies with the James Webb Space Telescope", a public lecture on what JWST is revealing about the first galaxies to form after the Big Bang.

📅 Wednesday 22 April 2026, 5:30–6:30pm
📍 Winstanley Lecture Theatre, Trinity College, Cambridge, CB2 1TJ

Book your free place:

Book spaces – Beyond Hubble: Studying the Earliest Galaxies with the James Webb Space Telescope - Prof. Richard Ellis – Winstanley Lecture Theatre, Trinity College Beyond Hubble: Studying the Earliest Galaxies with the James Webb Space Telescope - Prof. Richard Ellis – Winstanley Lecture Theatre, Trinity College, Wed 22 Apr 2026 - One hundred years ago, Edwin Hubble confirmed the presence of galaxies of various morphological forms beyond our own Milky Way.....