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In this issue:
Welcome to the May issue of ICRAR’s eNewsletter. It’s been a busy few months here at ICRAR, with lots of exciting developments taking place. Most recently was the fantastic news of the UK government committing £100million to the SKA, which will benefit WA scientists and industry with the development of this groundbreaking research facility.
Our researchers have also been busy hitting the headlines with their work, from discovering a new superpowered small black hole in a nearby galaxy, to the discovery of what makes certain spiral galaxies fat and bulging compared to their flat disc counterparts using data from the survey THINGS.
We’ve also seen another successful Astrofest pass us by in March, with the astronomy loving people of WA coming out in force to spend an evening looking through telescopes and hearing from the experts. Perth was treated to a rare partial solar eclipse in April, with our team of guerrilla astronomers taking to the streets of Perth armed with their telescopes, allowing the public to witness this astronomical event for themselves.
In this issue you can also catch up on more international SKA news, such as the upcoming SKA Engineering meeting being held in Fremantle, WA.
Finishing up the newsletter is one of our own PhD students Damien Macpherson who has had his research recognised by NASA’s Space Telescope Science Institute, allowing his work to contribute to the exciting James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) project that’s soon to be launched.
See you next time,
ICRAR |
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ICRAR News
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For the first time Dr Peter Curran and an international team of astronomers has measured circular polarisation in the bright flash of light from a dying star collapsing to a black hole, giving insight into an event that happened almost 11 billion years ago. |
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An international team of astronomers including Dr Jean-Pierre Macquart, has made a measurement of a distant neutron star that is one million times more precise than the previous world’s best. |
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Dr Mehmet Alpaslan and the GAMA survey team have shown galaxies in the vast empty regions of the Universe are actually aligned into delicate strings in research published in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society. |
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Dr Roberto Soria with a team of Australian and American astronomers have been studying nearby galaxy M83 and have found a new superpowered small black hole, named MQ1, the first object of its kind to be studied in this much detail.
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Other ICRAR News
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New Staff Members
The following new staff members and postgraduate students have joined ICRAR since the last edition of our eNewsletter:
- Joseph Diamond, Education & Outreach Assistant;
- David Kenney, Senior Technician;
- Emily Bromfield, Administrative Assistant;
- Markus Dolensky, Technical Leader;
- Dr Prajwal Kafle, Research Associate;
- Tracey O'Keefe, Executive Assistant;
- Dr Ivy Wong, Super Science Fellow;
- Dr Thomas Franzen, Postdoctoral Researcher
- Stephen Andrews, PhD;
- Krystal Cook, MSc;
- Geoff Duniam, MSc;
- Hatsune Furui, MSc;
- Benjamin Henderson, MSc;
- Theodora Papadimatos, MSc.
We wish them all a warm welcome to ICRAR. |
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Researcher Interview
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Galaxy sleuth Ivy Wong studies new stars forming in distant galaxies and helps make giant maps of radio waves across the sky. As well as all her research into the far reaches of space, Ivy also lends her expertise to Radio Galaxy Zoo, where citizen scientists can get involved and help figure out where radio jets are coming from (and maybe discover a new object or two!)
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Other News
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ICRAR's guerrilla astronomers were out in force on Tuesday the 29th of April, showing the people of Perth the partial solar eclipse through pinhole viewers and special solar telescopes. |
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In March over 4,000 people enjoyed yet another amazing Astrofest in Perth. The annual event was in its fifth year this year, and plans are already underway for 2015. As always, one of the highlights was the Astrophotography, take a look the WA local talent (and the award winning photos). |
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International SKA News
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WA Premier welcomes international financial commitment to global mega science project co-hosted in Western Australia. |
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29 September – 2 October 2014, Fremantle, Western Australia. First Announcement from the SKA Office. |
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TheSkyNet Update
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We've had a few competitions lately, which means we have some winners to announce! Plus you can check out the May update from theSkyNet by following the link in this article. |
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