Teams from the astronomy and astrophysics departments and observatories of different Swiss universities are involved in cutting-edge space research.

Given the nature of space research today, they work mainly in collaboration with colleagues from other Swiss institutions and from other countries.

Measuring the Universe

Swiss theoretical physicists, working with colleagues from the US, have developed a new method to determine the age of the universe. Using the "gravitational lensing effect", which exploits the way in which light rays bend around a galaxy, they were able to obtain more accurate measurements than had previously been possible.

The measurements obtained and other key data have been processed in one of the world's fastest computers at Zurich university.

The reseachers put the age of the universe at 13.5 billion years.