High in the Caucasus Mountains, in Nizhny Arkhyz, stands the Russian Academy of Sciences’ Special Astrophysical Observatory – the largest of its kind in Russia. Its powerful telescopes act like time machines, capturing light that has travelled across space for billions of years from distant galaxies. These observations not only offer a glimpse into the Universe’s distant past but also detect potential threats to Earth from beyond our planet.
Sean Thomas explores the observatory’s instruments alongside its scientists. Gennady Valyavin, the facility’s head, explains how the Large Altazimuth Telescope, which was once the biggest in the world, allows researchers to peer over 10 billion light-years into the past and observe the ancient Universe. Meanwhile, expert Yulia Sotnikova introduces Sean to the RATAN-600 radio telescope – a structure spanning dozens of football pitches that detects radio waves from the Sun and distant galaxies.
