Jodrell Bank founder Sir Bernard Lovell dies, age 98

CELEBRATED physicist and radio astronomer Sir Bernard Lovell has died at the age of 98, the University of Manchester has confirmed.

Sir Bernard was the university’s emeritus professor of ­radio astronomy and the founder and first director of Jodrell Bank Observatory in Cheshire. The university said his “legacy is immense” and added that he was “a great man. He will be sorely missed”.

Jodrell Bank is dominated by the 250ft Lovell telescope, conceived by Sir Bernard.

He began working with engineer Sir Charles Husband to build the telescope in 1945 and it has since become a symbol of British science and engineering and a landmark in the Cheshire countryside.

A hugely ambitious project at the time, the telescope was by far the world’s largest when it was completed in 1957 and within days tracked the rocket that carried Sputnik 1 into orbit, marking the dawn of the space age. It is still the third largest steerable telescope in the world and a series of upgrades mean it is now more capable than ever, observing phenomena undreamed of when it was first conceived.

The Lovell telescope plays a key role in research on pulsars, testing our understanding of extreme physics.