A window onto the universe from Mt Psiloritis

We watch the car thermometer drop 10 degrees from 30 Celsius as we leave the village of Anogeia in central Crete as we make the climb to the Skinakas Observatory on the summit of Mount Psiloritis (Ida).

The higher up we go, the more bare the landscape becomes, with herds of goats and black rams with impressive twisted horns dotting the hillsides. We spot one of the three domes of the observatory, which is headed by Vassilis Charmandaris, a professor of physics at the University of Crete and director of the Institute of Astrophysics at the Institute of Technology and Research (ITE). He is waiting for us, wearing a jacket with the Skinakas logo and we understand why as soon as we step out of the car: The temperature here is 19 degrees Celsius but it feels like -1. We are 1,750 meters above sea level. We can see the northern coast of Crete and the Aegean Sea and, on the other...