$40 Million Grant Establishes Simons Observatory

Mark Devlin, Professor of Astronomy and Astrophysics, will be the spokesperson for the newly formed Simons Observatory. The Simons Foundation funded Observatory will mark a new astronomy facility in Chile’s Atacama Desert that will merge and expand existing efforts to explore the evolution of the universe from its earliest moments, to today. Devlin’s research focuses in the area of cosmology and the evolution of structure in the universe as well as extra-galactic and galactic star formation.  His group specializes in the design and construction of novel telescopes and cryogenic receivers operating at millimeter and sub-millimeter wavelengths.

This future project will allow for a deeper investigation of the cosmic microwave background radiation to better understand the physics of the big bang, the nature of dark energy and dark matter, the properties of neutrinos and the formation of structure in the universe.

For a closer look visit Penn News or Simons Observatory