You're listening to Shortwave from NPR.

Hello, Shortwave Voyagers.

Today we are chatting with NPR Science correspondent Queen of the Stars and planets,

no, Greenfield Boys.

Oh, what a title.

So listen, Emily, when you think of astronomers, what tool do you think of?

Obviously, a parable, timey glasses.

I'm kidding, I'm kidding.

I think of a telescope.

Absolutely, of course, a telescope.

I mean, that has been true ever since 1609 when Italian astronomer Galileo pointed a telescope

up at the sky.

And he saw the mountains and craters of the moon, the four largest moons of Jupiter.

Ever since astronomers have been building ever bigger and more fancy telescopes, but they

all do the same thing, basically, which is capture light from distant objects.

Throughout all of human history, since we've been looking up at the stars, we've been gathering

information just based off of the light that we see.

So that's Chase Kimball, and he's a graduate student at Northwestern University.

And he's just one worker in this big astronomy revolution going on right now that involves

thousands of scientists.

He says it's like people have always been watching the sky like it's a silent movie.

And now they finally figured out how to switch on the sound.

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