Harwell lights up the Oxfordshire sky to celebrate its 80th anniversary
Dec 19, 2025
On the first day of 2026, the most powerful display laser in the UK will shine from the centre of Diamond Light Source, creating a vertical pillar of light in the night sky, visible to people across the region. The spectacle, which can be seen from 5.00pm – 10.00pm, will mark eight decades of Harwell’s world-leading science and innovation.
Nearby residents are encouraged to look out for The Beam, from doorsteps to vantage points like the Ridgeway, or from the campus fields. The laser will reach up to 8 km into the sky, offering a striking visual celebration of the light-based science present on campus.
Professor Gianluigi Botton, Diamond’s chief executive officer, said: “At Diamond, we harness the power of synchrotron light to reveal the structure of everything from viruses and vaccines to new materials and advanced technologies. The Beam marks 80 years of discovery and reflects the campus’ ongoing commitment to collaboration, innovation, and using light to transform the way we understand the world. We’re delighted to play our part on New Year’s Day in marking this momentous occasion.”
The Beam is 2.2 million times more powerful than a typical laser pen, yet still far less powerful than the lasers routinely used by the Central Laser Facility (CLF) at Harwell Campus. The CLF is currently upgrading its most powerful laser; the Vulcan 20-20 upgrade programme will deliver a laser with an extraordinary power output of 20 petawatts - equivalent to 200 billion kilowatts. This twentyfold increase in power will generate, in a single pulse, enough energy to recreate the extreme conditions found in deep space. Once upgraded, the CLF laser will be around 18 billion times more powerful than the laser used to create The Beam on New Year’s Day.
Diamond Light Source produces some of the brightest light in the world, but it isn’t light you can see with the naked eye. Inside the facility, powerful beams of light - billions of times brighter than the Sun - are used to study materials, medicines and living systems at the scale of atoms. While the New Year’s Day Beam will be a visible and dramatic symbol in the night sky, the light used every day at Diamond is far more powerful, precisely controlled, and entirely contained within the facility for scientific research.
The Beam is part of The Light Project and kicks off a series of events planned across 2026 to mark the 80th anniversary. The campus is a strategic national asset and home to the UK’s largest concentration of national research facilities. It has been at the forefront of discovery for eight decades, from the nation’s first nuclear research laboratories to today’s breakthroughs in space, quantum, energy, and life sciences.
Diamond Light Source is the UK's national synchrotron science facility, located at the Harwell Science and Innovation Campus in Oxfordshire.
Diamond Light Source Ltd
Diamond House
Harwell Science & Innovation Campus
Didcot
Oxfordshire
OX11 0DE
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