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NOIRLab observing specialists Carlos Morales (left) and Karla Peña (right) in the Rubin summit control room at Rubin’s mountaintop site of Cerro Pachón, Chile.

Remote eyes on the sky: Inside SLAC’s Rubin control room

09/23/25

Gaëlle Suter

With survey operations set to begin this fall, the Rubin control room at SLAC will serve as a key hub for training and remote observing support for the NSF–DOE Vera C. Rubin Observatory.

04/01/08

One more physicist goes to Congress

Upon becoming the third physicist in the 110th US Congress, Bill Foster called his election “a pretty successful experiment.”

04/01/08

Persis Drell: New SLAC director grapples with change

Layoffs, budget cuts, a call for new vision in high-energy physics -- in her first months as director of Stanford Linear Accelerator Center, Persis Drell had a lot to navigate.

04/01/08

Now that's serious metal music

Tesla coils always draw crowds, and the DucKon science fiction convention in Naperville, Illinois, was no exception. People gathered around the seven-foot-tall metal transformer tower and awaited its monotone crackle, purple sparks, and thrilling flashes of artificial lightning.

04/01/08

From atom smashers to X-ray movies

When particle accelerators gave birth to the powerful X-ray microscopes known as synchrotrons, they revolutionized the study of virtually every field of science.

04/01/08

Taking prototypes to the next dimension

As popular as the snack vending machine it resembles, a new 3D printer has been busy dispensing plastic-wrapped treats for designers and engineers.

02/01/08

W boson

In August 1982, Margaret Thatcher, then prime minister of the United Kingdom, paid a private visit to the European laboratory CERN. On her arrival she told Director General Herwig Schopper that she wanted to be treated as a fellow scientist.

02/01/08

Czech kimono challenge

Tokio Ohska had an opera to direct. As always, there were lighting, scenery, and music issues to contend with. But finding costumes to fit a cast of Europeans? That was a new challenge.

02/01/08

W boson

The W boson is a charged force-carrying particle that transmits the weak force.

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