Tag Archives: SKA

The ‘coolest’ place for astronomy

High on the Antarctic Plateau, in one of the coldest places on Earth, a group of telescopes are peering through stellar dust clouds into the heart of our galaxy.

The cold helps counteract interference from the telescopes and surrounding equipment, which can hinder our ability to see relatively
‘cool’ objects in space, such as asteroids, young stars, and interstellar gas.

Continue reading The ‘coolest’ place for astronomy

Hearing voices is normal; lenses a thousandth of a hair-width; harnessing the Internet of Things; and more—Swinburne University of Technology

Researchers at Swinburne University of Technology are working on:

Continue reading Hearing voices is normal; lenses a thousandth of a hair-width; harnessing the Internet of Things; and more—Swinburne University of Technology

Australia’s newest radio telescope

Fundamental questions about the Universe are set to be answered as a new radio telescope in outback Western Australia comes online, using multiple beam radio receiver technology to view the sky with unprecedented speed and sensitivity.

CSIRO’s ASKAP antennas stand at the Murchison Radio-astronomy Observatory in Western Australia. Credit: CSIRO

The Australian SKA Pathfinder (ASKAP), CSIRO’s newest telescope, uses innovative phased array feed receivers, also known as ‘radio cameras’, to capture images of radio-emitting galaxies in an area about the size of the Southern Cross—far more than can be seen with a traditional radio telescope.

Continue reading Australia’s newest radio telescope

Birth of our hot Universe

An Australian physicist is unravelling the mystery of how the hot, brilliant stars we see today emerged from our Universe’s “dark age”.

Stuart Wyithe’s models of an early universe will be explored by the next generation of telescope. Credit: Prime Minister's Science Prizes/Bearcage
Stuart Wyithe’s models of an early universe will be explored by the next generation of telescope. Credit: Prime Minister’s Science Prizes/Bearcage

Theoretical physicist Prof Stuart Wyithe is one of the world’s leading thinkers on the Universe as it was 13 billion years ago, when there were no stars or galaxies, just cold gas.

In the next few years astronomers will learn much more as powerful new telescopes come online.

Continue reading Birth of our hot Universe

Massive galaxy survey confirms accelerating Universe

The Universe is definitely getting bigger, faster—and astronomers using the Anglo-Australian Telescope in NSW have confirmed it.

The WiggleZ survey looked at over 200,000 visible galaxies (middle), but also gave insights into dark matter (the green grid that deforms the gravity field) and dark energy (the purple grid). Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
The WiggleZ survey looked at over 200,000 visible galaxies (centre), but also gave insights into dark matter (the green grid that deforms the gravity field) and dark energy (the purple grid). Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltec

The results are now in for WiggleZ, a survey of the night sky, spanning 200,000 galaxies and billions of years of cosmic history.

“This puts a nail in it. Clearly the universe is accelerating, and clearly there is something like dark energy,” says Prof Matthew Colless, director of the Australian Astronomical Observatory and a member of the WiggleZ team.
Continue reading Massive galaxy survey confirms accelerating Universe