Chris Lintott is a professor of astrophysics at the University of Oxford, where he is also a research fellow at New College, working on topics from galaxy evolution, transient detection and machine learning. As Principal Investigator of the Zooniverse, he leads a team who run the world’s most successful citizen science projects, allowing more than a million people to discover planets, transcribe ancient papyri or explore the Serengeti. A passionate advocate of the public understanding of science, he is best known as co-presenter of the BBC’s long running Sky at Night program. His book, ‘The Crowd and the Cosmos’, is available now from Oxford University Press.

Talk: Surprises in Space

The history of astronomy is one of continual surprise. Whenever astronomers have built new telescopes, or learn to look at the sky in a new way, they’ve been astounded by what they’ve found. Chris Lintott takes us through the Universe’s surprises – from pulsars to planets and from interstellar visitors to things that go bang in the night – and explains why being open to the unexpected is a 21st century astronomers most vital skill.