The largest direct-detection dark matter experiment in the US reached its latest milestone when the crews at the Sanford Underground Research Facility in South Dakota last week strapped the central component of LUX-ZEPLIN, (LZ) below an elevator and lowered it 4,850 feet down a shaft. Dr Pawel Majewski from the Particle Physics Department of the STFC has led the design, fabrication, cleaning, and delivery of LZ’s inner cryostat vessel.

A leading-edge new telescope instrument, designed and built by an international collaboration including the UK, has today aimed its 5,000 fibre-optic eyes at the night sky for the first time.

STFC congratulates members of staff Emma Meehan, Ian East and Donna Wyatt on winning two categories in the first ever Institute of Physics Technicians Awards. These awards recognise and celebrate the skills and experience of technicians and their contribution to physics that impacts all of us.

New STFC-funded research published today from a UK-led team challenges the theory that landslides on Mars were caused by ice – using detailed three-dimensional images of an ancient extensive landslide spanning an area more than 55 kilometres wide.

21 years ago today, Lord Sainsbury, then serving as the Minister for Science and Innovation, opened the doors of the UK Astronomy Technology Centre (UK ATC) in Edinburgh. Today we celebrate 21 years in the design and production of state-of-the-art astronomical instrumentation.

The UK-built Solar Orbiter spacecraft is preparing to leave the test facility in Germany to head for its launch site in the USA. UK scientists, including those from RAL Space, were instrumental in proposing the mission to ESA. The UK Space Agency funded the development of two out of the 10 scientific instruments on board the spacecraft, and contributed to a further two.

STFC’s astronomy community congratulates the three winners of this year’s Nobel Prize for Physics.