Sky is no limit for these city scientists

THEY are among the deepest and most profound questions known to humanity. How did we get here? What does the future hold for planet Earth? And is there life out there, somewhere among the stars?

Walkers enjoying the peace and panoramic views of Edinburgh from Blackford Hill may occasionally stop to wonder about such things, but a stone's throw away there is a team working to find answers to these timeless conund-rums.

Under the copper green turrets of the Royal Observatory is another world, where scientists working for Nasa create some of the world's most powerful investigative machines, while others analyse their findings.

Professor John Peacock, 52, the head of Edinburgh University's Institute for Astronomy (IfA), is evangelic about the work he and his 51 staff – 11 academics, 20 researchers and 30 PhD students – are engrossed in.

"People in the very early 20th century didn't know much more about the universe than the cavemen did," he enthuses.

"They didn't know the universe was expanding or made up of galaxies like the Milky Way, and now we know all those things and we're still roaring ahead."

The discoveries of astronomers have changed our most basic understanding of the universe around us, with implications across the scientific world.

Many of those advances are down to the super-powerful instruments which Professor Peacock's colleagues at the UK Astronomy Technology Centre (ATC), who are also based at the Royal Observatory, create.

Their work constantly breaks new boundaries. Indeed, earlier this year there was a spot within the observatory's walls that became the coldest place on earth – an astonishing -273C.

The plummeting temperature was caused by a towering blue machine called Scuba 2 – an extraordinary camera that needs to operate in such cold temperatures to capture incredible images of galaxies forming and stars being born.

After nurturing it for seven years, in February the scientists waved it away from Edinburgh to its new home at an observatory on top of a 14,000ft high dormant volcano in Hawaii.

One of Prof Peacock's students is based there, perhaps witnessing the birth of a new star right now.

This, however, is all in a day's work for the scientists of the ATC. They are already midway into their next project, another optical instrument that will become part of the James Webb Space Telescope, the successor of the famous Hubble telescope which famously beamed back highly detailed and colourful images of the universe.

You would think you'd have to be good at what you did to get an asteroid named after you in recognition of your work.

John Davies, a project scientist with the ATC, who has earned such an honour, is happy to confirm that.

"The reason we get to build these things for Nasa is because we're the best in the world at what we do," he smiles.

The instruments built in Edinburgh, when they are not going up into space, are shipped to huge observatories in Hawaii, Chile and Australia, where the skies are free from pollution, allowing the telescopes to peer further and more clearly into space.

Ian Robson, a jolly man with a hearty laugh, is director of the UK ATC. He shares John's enthusiasm for astronomy – a passion he has held since he was eight-years-old when he wrote to astronomer Patrick Moore asking about the constellation Orion.

He has also been responsible for defending the facility in the face of a threat to 50 posts there due to the UK ATC's parent body, the Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC), facing an 80 million budget "black hole".

The threat, thankfully, seems to have eased, with the STFC content with UK ATC's pledge to concentrate more time on developing the work that it does for commercial business benefit.

Ian was once based in Hawaii, responsible for two telescopes at the base where Scuba 2 now sits, but he says he didn't hesitate when he was invited to come and work in Edinburgh at the Royal Observatory.

"I was very happy to come back," says the adventurous 60-year-old, who has a passion for sailing and is also a pilot. "The UK ATC and the observatory has always been one of the meccas in terms of astronomy expertise and instrument building, so to be asked to come here and make it even better was amazing."

There is a lot to be proud of but today Ian enthuses abut the 37m Vista infrared telescope which his team has designed and constructed. It has just been delivered to an observatory based 2635 metres up a mountain in the Atacama Desert in Chile where it was put to the test for the first time earlier this week.

"These instruments are complex, they are expensive, and the teams are multi-national," explains Ian. "We specialise in being the prime contractor. We do the project management, usually much of the design and then we have subcontractors, typically universities, who then feed into the project, integration, assembly and test."

The devices are built in a modern part of the observatory called the Crawford Building – a tall grey structure that is filled with the hum of machines and has a distinct clean, chemical smell about it.

Currently, one of the main laboratories inside has become the home of a cryogenic robot arm that, together with 23 similar devices, will help scientists to take a pin-point look at specific areas of the night sky.

Ian says Government funding is behind much of the work the UK ATC does as it's an investment for the future of Britain's economy.

"Gordon Brown believes that science underpins the modern economy," says Ian. "We can no longer compete in what you might call the normal manufacturing assembly sector so we have to aim for high tech innovation and new industries, all of which require science technology and a high level of education."

Of course, it's not just business interests that are being served by the work of the Royal Observatory and Prof Peacock never forgets it is the curiosity of mankind that is ultimately being served.

"We've all stood out on a clear night, looked up and gone 'What on earth is all that about, where does it come from and what's my place in it'," he says.

"They're universal questions and the amazing thing is professional astronomers are having a good go at answering some of these things people have been asking for thousands of years."

A LOOK BACK THROUGH HISTORY

THE Royal Observatory on Blackford Hill opened in 1894 following a determined campaign by keen amateur astronomer Lord Lindsay, the 26th Earl of Crawford.

By 1888, the Edinburgh Observatory on Calton Hill had fallen on troubled times and a Royal Commission recommended it should cease to be a national institution.

On hearing this, Lord Lindsay pledged to gift the contents of his own splendidly equipped observatory and his magnificent library of first edition science books if a new Royal Observatory was built on Blackford Hill.

The Royal Observatory opened in 1896 and the Crawford Collection of astronomical books remains at Blackford Hill.

These days, only amateur astronomers use the observatory's 36 inch mirror telescope as light pollution and poor weather has pushed professionals to more remote parts of the world.