6:30pm - 7:00pm

Webb’s new window on the Universe

After decades of planning and construction, NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope is now fully operational. Its first science images made global headlines with their breathtaking clarity and depth when they were released in July. They show cosmic detail that was only hinted at by the Webb’s smaller cousin, the ageing Hubble Space Telescope, and foretell a game-changing career of discovery for the new instrument. In this entertaining and copiously illustrated talk, Australia’s Astronomer-at-Large describes the Webb, its images, its mission and its relationship to other upcoming facilities like the Square Kilometre Array and ESO’s Extremely Large Telescope. Not to be missed! 

Galactic Cannibalism: What has the Milky Way been eating – and what do those meals tell us about its figure?

Galaxies like our Milky Way grow by absorbing smaller systems, such as dwarf galaxies and star clusters. When these meals get too close, they are stretched into long streams of stars by the Galaxy’s tidal forces before their stars get mixed in with the rest of the Milky Way. By studying the compositions and motions of the stars in these stellar streams, we can figure out what kind of system (galaxy? star cluster?) they originally came from – essentially what our Milky Way has been “eating”. At the same time, these streams – like a string of lights around a dark Christmas tree – trace out where the mass in the Milky Way is located, including its dark matter. Since 2018 S5, an international collaboration launched in Australia, has been working on the first complete survey of southern hemisphere streams with the Anglo-Australian Telescope in Coonabarabran. So far, we have mapped 12 stellar streams, and I will talk about what these streams reveal about the Milky Way’s eating habits and its shape.

Becoming an astronomer at Macquarie University

When I finished high school I had very romantic notions of what it would be like to be an astronomer - gazing through telescopes at beautiful images of galaxies and nebulae, noting down an observation or two. When I started my undergraduate astronomy degree I had a bit of a shock - there was maths involved, and physics, and a lot of coding. In this talk I will share my experiences of being a student at Macquarie, and of learning the ropes of what it means to be an astronomer today. I will also speak about what I research now (galaxies!) as a glimpse into some of the open problems students of astronomy can tackle. 

Tiny Fibres, Big Science: How Optical Fibres help Astronomers uncover the secrets of the Universe

When many people think of the wonders of astronomy, they think of the glorious Hubble Space Telescope Images, or even the recent  and equally phenomenal JWST images. For Ground Based Astronomy, optical fibres are often the unsung heroes, and help Astronomers learn, discover, and uncover the secrets of the universe. Australian Astronomical Optics, a department of Macquarie University’s Faculty of Science and Engineering are responsible for building cutting edge fibre optic-fed instruments for telescopes such as the Giant Magellan Telescope, VISTA, Gemini, and the more-local Anglo-Australian, and UK Schmidt Telescopes in Siding Spring. Learn about how optical fibres play an important role in Astronomy, and enjoy a crash-course in fibre-based instrumentation.

Radio Eyes on the Hydrogen Sky

What would the sky look like if you could see not in light, but in radio waves? You would realise that the "empty" space between stars and galaxies is not empty at all - it is filled with vast clouds and streams of hydrogen gas. This is hydrogen gas is the raw material from which stars like our sun are born, and it is everywhere! Join CSIRO and Macquarie University radio astronomer Dr Jo Dawson for a brief tour of the stunningly beautiful hydrogen sky, and a look at this most important interstellar atom.

8:30pm - 9:00pm

Demystifying the chemical complexity of the Universe

The Universe is anything by simple! Stars, like humans, are born, get old and eventually die. At every stage of their life, they create a suite of elements adding to the chemical complexity of the Universe. 60% of stars have a partner, which critically alters their chemical element production. And, yes, there is more! While we know that stars can host planets when they are young, we have discovered that stars can also create and host planets later in life, further complicating their stellar outputs. Come along with me on this journey as we unlock the chemical complexity of the Universe.

Black holes, white holes, wormholes: physics learning from sci-fi

We have seen pictures of black holes. Why can we do this? Is what we see really a black hole, and what actually is a black hole? Can we actually fall into one, and can somebody escape? How weird should the physics of such objects be? Does it mean we can have intergalactic hyperspace travel and which sci-fi is correct: the universes where the wormhole mouths are precious and jealously guarded resources, stories where you can build them, or where you just go into hyperspace if the conditions are just right?

Astronomy from the Stratosphere - my NASA missions

What's it like to observe the Universe from 40,000 feet? Stuart Ryder has just returned from flying a series of missions on NASA's Stratospheric Observatory For Infrared Astronomy (SOFIA), a modified Boeing 747 with a 2.5 metre telescope in the rear. In this talk he'll outline the rewards and challenges of doing astronomy from the air.

The Planetarium: An Inflatable Learning Tool

Have you ever seen a planetarium being used in classroom teaching? Planetariums can offer an alternative learning environment to engage, motivate, and teach students. They have had a positive impact on learners in informal learning environments. By using a planetarium in the classroom, emotional aspects of learning can be heightened, including motivation, interest, and perseverance. My MRes research thesis involves creating a Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts, Mathematics (STEAM) program that uses a planetarium as a learning tool to engage students in inquiry based learning and the concept of seasonal change. The main research goal is to pursue a ‘community of inquiry’: to create deep and meaningful learning experiences through the development of peer/teacher interaction (social presence) and construction/reflection on concepts (cognitive presence). With this program, we hope to engage students in learning about seasonal change, piquing their interest by relating concepts to their everyday lives, and motivating their curiosity and sense of inquiry by using the planetarium as a learning tool.

Unraveling the Magellanic Clouds with Visible and Invisible Light

The Large and Small Magellanic Clouds are two of the closest and largest galaxies that orbit our Milky Way galaxy. Here in Australia, we can see them as faint “clouds” in the night sky looking toward the South. They are interacting with each other and with the Milky Way. They are important for understanding extragalactic star formation and galaxy evolution in general. I will discuss observations of these two galaxies at visible (optical) and invisible (infrared and radio) light, and what these different types of light data can tell us about these two galaxies.