Jim Al-Khalili

but even with greater precision than ever before.

I gather you are particularly interested to learn more about inflation, this super fast expansion of space.

So what did you find?

In 2009, Hiranya, you took up a lectureship at University College London.

You later became professor of astrophysics there.

And during this time, you got interested in dark matter.

Now, we know dark matter is out there.

We still don't know what it's made of, although we do have some candidates.

But you've been trying to detect dark matter particles.

It's in a range.

Get on with it.

We know dark matter's there.

We don't know what it's made of.

Well, in 2023, you returned to Cambridge as Professor of Astrophysics 1909.

While for much of your career, you'd focused on the early universe, more recently, you've turned your sights to the more recent universe.

Yes.

This is a hugely exciting project.

It's known as the Legacy Survey of Space and Time, carried out at a new astronomical observatory based in Chile called the Vera Rubin Observatory.

This is named after the woman who first explained how dark matter holds galaxies together, that it had to be out there.

The project is going to generate this time-lapse movie of the visible universe.