G. Smecher

A thermometer cooled to near absolute zero picks up the heat from a single particle. That's how cryogenic calorimeters work — instruments that catch ultra-rare events like neutrinoless double beta decay. But old thermistor thermometers respond slowly: in about a millisecond.

In the frozen desert of Antarctica, the SPT-3G telescope peers deep into the universe. Its target is the ancient microwave radiation left over from the Big Bang. But on its way to us, this radiation passes through giant galaxy clusters filled with scorching gas.