Sandra Faber loves telescopes. It's one of the reasons she became an astronomer. And if ‘scopes could speak, I suspect they'd have some loving words for her. She's helped bring major new telescopes into being, developed instruments that greatly enhance their power and saved one famous scope from an early demise. And she's put them to good use, too, participating in major astronomical discoveries and contributing to leading cosmological theories, like the cold dark matter theory of galaxy formation.

The thing that pleases her most, though, is being part of the 13.7-billion-year-old cosmic story going back to the big bang. Sandy and I talked about her career and accomplishments, her sense of the universe and our place in space.