How Modern and Antique Technologies Reveal a Dynamic Cosmos

Today’s observatories document every pulse and flash in the sky each night. To understand how the cosmos has changed over longer periods, scientists rely on a more tactile technology.

In early 2007, René Hudec was in Building D of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, thumbing through roomfuls of floor-to-ceiling cabinets that look more like a vast record collection than an academic archive. Each paper sleeve holds a glass plate, most of which are 8 by 10 inches, a historic photographic record of the cosmos from before the age of sophisticated digital detectors.

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