Keywords
Astronomy; Astrophysics research; Pure research
Abstract
Of all the intellectual pursuits of our species, perhaps the most venerable is our quest to comprehend the cosmos and our place within it. For millennia, we have fixed our eyes on the stars as part of this quest. Though our gaze has become increasingly sophisticated in the past half century – with billions of dollars spent on powerful telescopes and other space exploration technologies – our wonder only seems to deepen with each new discovery, revealing just how far we have to go.
Yet, we continue the quest. Some of us reserve our stargazing for clear nights in our own backyards while others devote their entire careers to the endeavor. This is a story about a subset of the latter group of individuals – a small number of highly accomplished UNLV astrophysicists who have achieved remarkable status in the scientific community in a very short time. You may not have heard of them, but that’s about to change.
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