This lecture will be a hybrid event meaning that Friends of the RAS will be able to attend in-person or online via Zoom. A ticket link will be emailed the Friends in due course.
You must book a ticket in advance to attend this lecture.
The European Space Agency's Euclid spacecraft will launch in 2024 and will carry out a five-year survey of the sky to measure the Universe with two experiments: a “weak lensing” imaging survey that probes the gravitational bending of light as it travels through the Universe; and a galaxy clustering spectroscopy survey to measure the clustering of galaxies. Both sets of measurements will be linked to tests of the standard cosmological model and will allow astronomers to search for departures from that model. The mission will further our understanding of the mysterious dark matter and dark energy, which together represent most of the Universe's mass/energy.
Lance Miller is Professor of Astrophysics at the University of Oxford where he has worked since 1996. His principal research interests are in observational cosmology, particularly surveys of weak gravitational lensing. He has worked on the Euclid mission for more than 10 years, focusing on the technical challenges of measuring the weak lensing signal and how the telescope itself affects those measurements.
Image source: https://sci.esa.int/web/euclid/-/structural-and-thermal-model-of-the-euclid-satellite-6