Pondering the future with the Astronomer Royal

What are humanity’s biggest challenges?

We need to be concerned about the environment and move as quickly as we can to a low-carbon economy. This would best be done by accelerating research into clean energy so that the costs come down. Then countries like India, which need more energy and resources, will be able to leapfrog directly to clean energy and not build coal-fired power stations.

Do you think we should continue looking for extraterrestrial intelligence?

It’s worth it for a chance of finding evidence of something manifestly artificial in the Universe in our lifetime. Currently it’s all privately funded, which I feel is fully justified, but if you asked people coming out of a science fiction movie whether they’d be happy for some of the tax revenues from that movie to be hypothecated for the search for extraterrestrial intelligence, I think many would say yes. So I think it’s reasonable for some public-funded projects to be aimed at this goal.

Are we entering a new epoch in our understanding of the Universe?

What has happened in astronomy is fascinating. When I started it was exciting because we had the first evidence of the Big Bang, black holes and neutron stars. But the pace has been just as high in the last few years with exoplanets, dark matter and the detection of gravitational waves. I think for young people thinking of a career in science, the prospects in astronomy are extremely bright.