Crawford Lab
You’ve landed in our biggest lab, where we build cutting-edge scientific instruments for BIG telescopes
Right here, right now, we’re busy building the MOONS instrument for the Very Large Telescope – the biggest telescope for visible and infrared light in the world! We’re leading the international team to design and build this ground-breaking instrument
What will MOONS do?
MOONS will be an incredibly powerful and efficient tool for exploring space. Among other things, it will allow us to understand better than ever before how galaxies like our Milky Way have formed
How big is MOONS?
MOONS is big – really big. In fact, we think we’ve built the biggest cryostat in astronomy! (A cryostat is a chamber used to maintain the very low temperatures sensitive instruments like MOONS need to work properly)
Where is MOONS headed?
The biggest of its kind in the world, the Very Large Telescope is located at the Paranal Observatory, 2,635 metres above sea level in the Atacama Desert in northern Chile. Being high and dry helps minimise the effects of Earth’s atmosphere on observations
Family Friendly Activities
Make your own craters
MOONS won't be used to study our Moon. But you can try this fun experiment at home to understand why our Moon looks as it does
Download the instruction sheet: Make Your Own Craters
