Summary

One hundred years ago, Edwin Hubble confirmed the presence of galaxies of various morphological forms beyond our own Milky Way. When the famous Space Telescope named in his honour was launched in 1990, astronomers began to explore how they assembled over 13 billion of years of cosmic history. Progress has accelerated with the more powerful James Webb Space Telescope sufficiently that we may soon witness the earliest galaxies emerging from darkness. The motivation is fundamental: the birth of starlight initiated the formation of the chemical elements ultimately leading to our own existence in this remarkable universe.

Richard Ellis CBE FRS is a distinguished Welsh astronomer and Professor of Astrophysics at University College London. Professor Ellis is renowned for his work in observational cosmology, galaxy evolution, and dark matter. His scientific programmes have shaped research spanning from nearby stars to the most distant galaxies in the infant Universe, using some of the world’s most advanced telescopes, including ESO’s Very Large Telescope, the Atacama Large Millimetre Array, and the Hubble and James Webb Space Telescopes.

Professor Ellis has held major positions, including Plumian Professor and Director of the Institute of Astronomy at Cambridge, and Director of Palomar Observatory at Caltech. He participated in the Supernova Cosmology Project, whose team discovered the accelerating expansion of the Universe, an achievement honoured by the 2011 Nobel Prize in Physics.

Professor Ellis was awarded the 2011 Gold Medal of the Royal Astronomical Society, the 2022 Royal Medal of the Royal Society, and the 2023 Gruber Prize in Cosmology.

Getting Here

• The public talk will be in Winstanley Lecture Theatre, Trinity College, CB2 1TJ.

• View on Google Maps and the University of Cambridge map.

• Visitors are encouraged to travel by bus, bicycle, or on foot where possible. The nearest parking option is Grand Arcade Car Park (paid).