Link to the journal articles:

1 March 2011

We are now accepting Expressions of Interest for CAS's 2011 application round of PhD scholarships. A range of scholarships are available to local and international students.

Click here for more information.

Note that although the deadline for formal PhD scholarship applications is in late May, Expressions of Interest should be made as early as possible.

After the Expression of Interest is assessed, students in contention for scholarships must discuss potential PhD projects with possible PhD supervisors, and forward certified documents by regular mail, to be received at Swinburne by the 18th May.

21 February 2011

Giant galaxies that contain billions of stars are born in much the same way as delicate snowflakes, new research from Swinburne University of Technology has shown.

In a paper accepted for publication in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, Professor Duncan Forbes has provided the first direct evidence to support a theory of galaxy formation that he has likened to the birth of a snowflake.

Forbes, with the help of international collaborators, analysed data from three different telescopes in order to help confirm this galaxy formation theory proposed last year by German astronomer Ludwig Oser and his colleagues.

Please click here for the full media release.

20 January 2011

The Multiwavelength Atlas of Galaxies (MAG), authoured by Swinburne University of Technology's Dr Glen Mackie, has just been published by Cambridge University Press. MAG contains over 250 colour images of 35 galaxies spanning the whole electromagnetic spectrum. Accompanying text explains why we see the component stars, gas and dust through different radiation processes. It is a valuable reference for students seeking an overview of multiwavelength observations of galaxies, and for researchers needing summaries of individual galaxies.

Excerpts from MAG are available at http://astronomy.swin.edu.au/~gmackie/MAG

For a recent Staff Bulletin article click here.

19 November 2010

Complex supercomputer models of Galactic dust and gas are helping to spot newborn planets.

An international team of astronomers has laid the groundwork for the next astronomy sensation: watching a far distant planet in the act of being born. Their work is refining the study of the disks of dust that enfold newborn planets, creating a clearer view of cosmic birth.

Swinburne University of Technology's Associate Professor Sarah Maddison and colleagues Dr. Laure Fouchet of Berne University, Switzerland, and Dr. Jean-Francois Gonzalez of Lyon University, France, have developed a technique for studying the vast disk of dust and gas surrounding an infant star. Their technique will allow astronomers using the latest and most powerful millimetre wavelength telescopes to watch as young planets take shape and create that star's solar system - albeit about 500 years ago in Earth time.

For the full media release, please click here.

19 October 2010

Using Australian telescopes, Swinburne University astronomy student Andy Green has found 'living dinosaurs' in space: galaxies in today's Universe that were thought to have existed only in the distant past. The report of his finding - Green's first scientific paper - appears on the cover of the 7 October issue of Nature. "We didn't think these galaxies existed. We've found they do, but they are extremely rare," said Professor Karl Glazebrook, Green's thesis supervisor and team leader. The Swinburne researchers have likened the galaxies to the ‘living dinosaurs' or Wollemi Pines of space - galaxies you just wouldn't expect to find in today's world.

For the full media release, please click here.

To view the associated animation, please click here.

26th August 2010

We are now accepting applications for Swinburne's 2010 round of summer scholarships.

Click here for more information

17 August 2010

Using hardware developed by the computer game industry, Swinburne University astronomers are solving some of science's most challenging computational problems. In a series of papers published this year, members of Swinburne's Centre for Astrophysics and Supercomputing have shown how graphics processing units (GPUs) - a type of processor that improves graphics in computer games - can be applied to the field of astronomy.

Follow this link for the Swinburne media release. High resolution images are available here.

1st August 2010

We are now accepting Expressions of Interest for Swinburne's October 2010 application round of PhD scholarships. A range of scholarships are available to local and international students.

Click here for more information

Note that although the deadline for formal PhD scholarship applications is in late October, Expressions of Interest should be made as early as possible. After the Expression of Interest is assessed, students in contention for scholarships must discuss potential PhD projects with possible PhD supervisors, and forward certified documents by regular mail, to be received at Swinburne by the 21st October.

25th July 2010

The ARC has recently announce the Centre of Excellence outcomes for funding starting in 2011. The Centres of Excellence form the largest and most prestigious grant scheme funded by the ARC. The ARC Centre of Excellence for All-Sky Astrophysics (CAASTRO) was approved for funding from 2011, with a budget of $20.6M. CASSTRO is a broad collaboration of Australian and international institutions including Swinburne University, and Prof. Bryan Gaensler from Sydney University is Director. See this report for a summary of proposal outcomes.

CAASTRO official website: www.caastro.org.au

9th July 2010

PhD student Adrian Malec and Dr. Michael Murphy from Swinburne's Centre for Astrophysics and Supercomputing have studied a distant galaxy revealed in silhouette against a bright background quasar to help reveal a new cosmological anomaly involving molecules containing hydrogen's doubly-heavy cousin, deuterium (D). This isotope is only produced in the bang bang and is subsequently destroyed by fusion processes in stars; knowing how much deuterium is in the Universe provides crucial information about the big bang and cosmology. But the HD molecule - deuterated molecular hydrogen - should have a far more complex life cycle than D alone and should have very different abundances in different galaxies and even in different places within one galaxy. And yet this new study using quasar observations from the 10-m Keck telescope in Hawaii finds a strange coincidence between the abundance of D and that of HD. Could these new HD observations be used to study cosmology too? The odds are stacked against it, but intriguingly, tantalizingly, the data suggest it may be the case.

Read the full Swinburne press release.

1st July 2010

A multi-million dollar upgrade to Swinburne University's supercopmputer will make it a leading research facility for the Australian astronomy community. The upgrade, which will receive $1 million from the Federal Government's Education Investment Fund (EIF) and $2 million from Swinburne, will dramatically increase the speed and capacity of the facility - now known as 'gSTAR'. Follow this link for the Swinburne press release.

31st May 2010

Like bubbles bursting on the surface of a glass of champagne, 'bubbles' in our Galaxy burst and leave flecks of material in the form of clouds of hydrogen gas, PhD student Alyson Ford, from the Centre for Astrophysics and Supercomputing at Swinburne University, has found. Her team, consisting of Ford, and collaborators Felix J. Lockman of NRAO, and Naomi Mclure-Griffiths of CSIRO Astronomy and Space Science, presented thier findings to the American Astronomical Society's meeting in Miami, Florida. The NRAO press release is available here, and the CSIRO press release is available from this link.

17th May 2010

Swinburne researcher Rob Crain has used stunning new hydrodynamical simulations of galaxy formation to follow the detailed evolution of hot gas surrounding disk galaxies - showing agreement with X-ray observations for the first time.

Hot, X-ray luminous coronae surrounding present-day disk galaxies - such as our own Milky Way - are predicted by galaxy formation theories based on hierachical cosmogonies, such as the currently preferred Lambda-Cold Dark Matter paradigm.

Simple models suggest that this extra-planar emission from massive, local disk galaxies should be seen at surface brightnesses readily accessible by existing X-ray observatories. These models have not garnered observational support, with non-detections commonplace and the few confirmed detections indicating X-ray luminosities 10-100x fainter than expected. This discord has been posited as a challenge to the prebailing view of galaxy formation.

Crain and collaborators used the GIMIC hydrodynamical simulations to highlight shortcomings in the simple models underpinning the predictions, and thus demonstrate that the observations are in fact consistent with the contemporary galaxy formation models.

The paper, and high-resolution images can be downloaded from here.

22nd April 2010

Alien invaders pack the Milky Way

In a paper accepted for publication in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, Swinburne astronomy Professor Duncan Forbes has shown that many of our galaxy's star clusters are actually foreigners - having been born elsewhere and then migrating to our Milky Way.

"It turns out that many of the stars and star clusters we see when we look into the night sky are not natives, but aliens from other galaxies," said Forbes. "They have made their way into our galaxy over the last few billion years."

Previously astronomers had suspected that some star clusters, which contain around a million stars each, were foreign to our galaxy, but it was difficult to positively identify which ones.

Using Hubble Space Telescope data, Forbes, along with his Canadian colleague Professor Terry Bridges, examined old star clusters within the Milky Way galaxy.

They then compiled the largest ever high-quality database to record the age and chemical properties of each of these clusters.

"Using this database we were able to identify key signatures in many of the star clusters that gave us tell-tale clues as to their external origin," Forbes said.

"We determined that these foreign-born star clusters actually make up about one quarter of our Milky Way star cluster system. That implies tens of millions of accreted stars from star clusters alone.

The researchers' work also suggests that the Milky Way may have swallowed-up more dwarf galaxies than was prebiously thought.

"We found that many of the foreign clusters originally existed within dwarf galaxies - that is 'mini' galaxies of up to 100 million stars that sit within our larger Milky Way.

"Our work shows that there are more of these accreted dwarf galaxies in our Milky Way than was thought. Astronomers had been able to confirm the existence of two accreted dwarf galaxies in our Milky Way - but our research suggests that there might be as many as six yet to be discovered.

"Although the dwarf galaxies are broken-up and thier stars assimilated into the Milky Way, the star clusters of the dwarf galaxy remain intact and survive the accretion process."

"This will have to be explored further, but it is a very exciting prospect that will help us to better understand the history of our own galaxy."

Forbes' research was carried out in Canada as part of an Australian Research Council International Fellowship.

The research paper can be accessed at http://arxiv.org/pdf/1001.4289v1.

16th April 2010

Swinburne has been awarded two Super Science Fellowships by the federal government. Twenty Australian institutes received fellowships that aim to attract and retain the best and brightest early-career researchers from Australia and around the world. Swinburne’s two fellowships are associated with a $556,800 project conducted by the Centre for Astrophysics and Supercomputing that will study the process of galaxy assembly across cosmic time. Professor Karl Glazebrook, and Drs Michael Murphy, Emma Ryan-Weber, Chris Blake and Virginia Kilborn comprised the team who proposed the successful project titled "Mass Assembly of Galaxies in the Cosmos: The roles of stars, gas and metals". The Swinburne media release can be accessed here.

1st March 2010

We are now accepting Expressions of Interest for Swinburne's May 2010 application round of PhD scholarships. A range of scholarships are available to local and international students.

Click here for more information

Note that although the deadline for formal PhD scholarship applications is in late May, Expressions of Interest should be made as early as possible. After the Expression of Interest is assessed, students in contention for scholarships must discuss potential PhD projects with possible PhD supervisors, and forward certified documents by regular mail, to be received at Swinburne by the 19th May.

21st September 2009

It may sound like science fiction, but freakish galactic events such as ravenous black holes and ripples in the space-time continuum, could be happening all around us according to new research from Swinburne University of Technology.

In a study published in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, Swinburne researchers examined 50 regular galaxies to determine their composition and structure.

The researchers, Associate Professor Alister Graham and Dr Lee Spitler, found that 12 of these galaxies contained a double nucleus - that is they had both a super massive black hole and a dense star cluster containing up to ten million stars at their centre.

Read the full story here.

21st September 2009

Swinburne astronomer Rob Crain has produced a simulation of the evolution of the Universe, determining the fate of dwarf satellites, and predicting the existence of thousands of dark matter clumps surrounding the Milky Way.

The simulations also form part of a new ICC movie called Our Cosmic Origins, which combines ground-breaking simulations with observations of galaxies to track the evolution of the Milky Way over the 13-billion-year history of the Universe. It was highlighted at the "Royal Society Summer ScienceExhibition" in July 2009.

A stunning movie of the simulation can be found here, and an accompanying story is here.

5th August 2009

We are now accepting Expressions of Interest for Swinburne's October application round of PhD scholarships. A range of scholarships are available to local and international students.

Click here for more information

Note that although the deadline for formal PhD scholarship applications is in late October, Expressions of Interest should be made as early as possible. After the Expression of Interest is assessed, students in contention for scholarships must discuss potential PhD projects with possible PhD supervisors, and forward certified documents by regular mail, to be received at Swinburne by the 23rd October.

5th August 2009

We are now accepting application for Summer Vacation Scholarships to be undertaken at CAS between December 2009 and February 2010. Applications must be submitted by the 30th September 2009.

Click here for more information

21 June 2009

Dr Emma Ryan-Weber is one of this year's Fresh Scientists. Fresh Science is a national competition that identifies new and interesting research being done by early-career scientists around the country and releases their stories to the media. Emma and her colleagues have discovered the oldest and most distant carbon in the Universe, but there's not enough of it to support standard theories of how the Universe lit up.

Full story on the Fresh Science and Swinburne Media Releases websites.

27 March 2009

Professor Warrick Couch has been recognised for his contribution to the field of astrophysics, by election to the Australian Academy of Science. Couch, a distinguished professor at the Centre for Astrophysics and Supercomputing, has been acknowledged for his work on galaxy evolution and cosmology, and his involvement in the discovery of the accelerating universe. Election to the Academy represents one if the highest honours that a scientist can be awarded in Australia. Each year the Academy elects 16 new fellows from a diverse range of sciences. Couch's election further cements his place as one of the country's most eminent scientists.

23 March 2009

The discovery of a galactic freak - an extremely rare ultra-compact dwarf galaxy, the closest yet found to the Earth - could furnish the missing link in understanding how galaxies and their clusters evolve.

Swinburne University of Technology astronomer Dr. George Hau, along with Professor Duncan Forbes and his research group, made the discovery using the giant Keck telescope - the most powerful optical instrument in the world.

Full story: Swinburne Magazine, Issue #5

15 March 2009

We are now accepting Expressions of Interest for Swinburne's May application round of PhD scholarships. A range of scholarships are available to local and international students.

Click here for more information

Note that although the deadline for formal PhD scholarship applications is in late May, Expressions of Interest should be made as early as possible. After the Expression of Interest is assessed, students in contention for scholarships must discuss potential PhD projects with possible PhD supervisors, and forward certified documents by regular mail, to be received at Swinburne by the 22nd May.

16 Feb 2009

Little is known about Robert Wigmore, the maker of a large reflector telescope once owned by Swinburne University. Built in 1894, and used for astronomy classes at Swinburne in the 1950s, the telescope disappeared in 1960. For over 40 years, its whereabouts remained a mystery. To celebrate the International Year of Astromy, the recently re-discovered Wigmore Telescope is returning to Swinburne University for one evening. For more information, including bookings for this event, see here.

23 Jan 2009

Bigger than Big, a three-dimensional astronomical journey produced by Swinburne University was a proud invited participant in the 38th Rotterdam International Film Festival this week. The film was chosen as part of the "Signals: Size Matters" Program along with films from around the globe.

Bigger than Big was produced at the Swinburne's Centre for Astrophysics and Supercomputing and combines cutting edge scientific astronomical data and simulations with stunning animations.

From an astronaut's footprint to the galaxy clusters that form the most gigantic structures known, Bigger than Big is a captivating astronomy experience designed for science museums, observatories and planetariums. Data visualisations from galaxy surveys were used alongside realistic animations to create a beautiful and educational universe.

The Rotterdam Film Festival is an active supporter of independent film making from around the globe and offers a program of innovative, experimental cinema and film-related art.

"Being chosen for a festival like Rotterdam is a wonderful recognition of the work we do," says the film's Director, Russell Scott. "It shows the ability of innovative storytelling and animation to bring science into the world of art and vice versa. Supporting crossover scientific films like Bigger than Big is a really unique aspect of Swinburne's business."

Bigger than Big is currently showing in 3d-stereo at Swinburne Astrotour theatres in Sydney, Parkes, Hobart, and the United Kingdom, among others.

12 Jan 2009

UNESCO has declared 2009 to be the "International Year of Astronomy" (IYA09). Here at the Centre for Astrophysics, we will be running a number of special events throughout the year, along with some old favourites. All events will be listed here: http://astronomy.swin.edu.au/outreach/

We are kicking things off with our summer public AstroTours. These 3D tours of the universe are guided by one of the Centre's astronomers and will also show a selection of our 3D films. More information is available on our AstroTour homepage: http://astronomy.swin.edu.au/astrotour The summer dates are 21 January at 3 pm, and 22 January at 7 pm, and the price is $10 per person. Bookings are essential and can be made by calling 9214 5569, or emailing contact@astro.swin.edu.au

The 2009 Public Lecture series will celebrate IYA09 with a focus on the research of the Centre's astronomers, and our distinguished visitors. The full lecture program can be found here: Free lecture series

The first Public Lecture will be on 19 February at 6:30 pm. Professor Matthew Bailes, the Centre's Director, will talk about his favourite pastime, Millisecond Pulsar Hunting. Bookings can be made as per above.

Dec 2008

The Centre for Astrophysics and Supercomputing has had its Tier 1 status reaffirmed and will receive Tier 1 funding until the end of 2015.

News: The opening of our new High-Definition Virtual-Reality Theatre

Our new High-Definition Virtual-Reality Theatre was opened by Dame Jocelyn Bell Burnell and Swinburne's Vice-Chancellor, Professor Ian Young on Monday 8th December with a short introduction from Centre Director Professor Matthew Bailes and a presentation from Dame Joceyln Bell Burnell.

Study: Vacation scholarships: Applications for summer accepted

We are now accepting applications for Vacation Scholarships at the Centre for Astrophysics & Supercomputing from enthusiastic university students with excellent scholastic records who are in the last, or second last, year of their undergraduate degree.

For scholarships during the period December 2008 to February 2009, we ask for applications to be submitted by the 31st October 2008.

Click here for more information

News: The Little Things are Coming! In High Definition!

Comets. Asteroids. Kuiper Belt Objects. The popular 3D stereo production by the Centre for Astrophysics and Supercomputing has been re-designed and animated in full High Definition Stereo, especially for Swinburne Astrotour Theatres around the world. This is the story of the amazing little things in the Solar System, and the incredible space explorers that have visited them.

“Many of the stories about our Solar System concentrate on the Sun and the Planets, but the asteroids, comets and Kuiper belt objects have their own fascinating science to share,” Dr Chris Fluke, astronomer and original screenplay author, says. “By re-releasing this production in high definition, we can give people a more immersive experience and a better understanding of our Solar System.” The Little Things HD takes us from shooting stars on earth to the outer reaches of the Oort cloud, where comets are thought to form. We land on the surface of a comet and fly through the asteroid belt.

“The beauty of 3D stereoscopic animation is the educational impact it provides,” explains Dr Elizabeth Stark, Marketing and Business Manager for the Centre. “We are no longer limited to telling the audience facts about comets, for instance, we can now pick them up and put them on the surface of one. That kind of realistic experience is an extremely powerful education tool that just wasn't available ten or twenty years ago.” The Little Things HD will be released worldwide on the 29th of September, 2008, and will be screening as part of Swinburne University of Technology's Spring Holiday Astrotours.

For a full list of Astrotour theatres see  http://www.vr.swin.edu.au/astrotour/installations.html. For sales and licencing information, please contact our distribution team at vr@swin.edu.au.

The Little Things HD3D Flyer

Research: Measuring the Universe with a fine tooth comb

Images explaining the research

Swinburne Media Release

New Scientist news item

Bigger than Big movie is finalist in 2008 Scinema Awards - 11th August 2008

Bigger than Big, a three dimensional astronomical journey produced by Swinburne University has been accepted as a finalist in the 2008 SCINEMA traveling festival of science.

The short animation will be touring Australia during National Science Week (August 16 - 24) as part of the "To the Moon and Back" SCINEMA program. SCINEMA is a science film, multimedia and video festival that works to combine the best of the arts and sciences to increase science literacy nationally.

From an astronaut's footprint to the galaxy clusters that form the most gigantic structures known, Bigger than Big is a captivating astronomy experience designed for science museums, observatories and planetariums. Data visualisations from galaxy surveys were used alongside realistic animations to create a beautiful and educational universe.

Amateur astronomer stars for NASA

Herald Sun News Item

Research: Earth’s laws still apply in the distant Universe

Images explaining the research

Swinburne Media Release

ABC News Item

Research: Einstein's theory still stands up to the stars

Swinburne Media Release

CAS Binary Pulsar Page with animation

Research: Watching the Universe expand in real time

Swinburne Media Release

Research: Strange stellar pair puzzles astronomers

Research: The Universe is twice as bright as was previously thought

Swinburne Media Release

News: Swinburne University joins the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy (AURA)

News: Swinburne Astronomer wins Astronomical Society of the Pacific Prize

The "Nod and Shuffle" observational technique allows astronomers to obtain very faint spectra of celestial objects by naturally subtracting the glow of the nighttime sky. The technique has been used successfully in the study of faint galaxies with the Anglo-Australian Telescope, in the Gemini Deep Deep Survey of galaxies in the early universe, and in other applications.

Astronomy Society of the Pacific Press Release

News: Bringing new life to online journals

Swinburne Media Release

Link to 3d-PDF papers

News: Royal Astronomical Society prize for Swinburne Astronomers

An Australian and UK astronomy team, including Professor Warrick Couch and Professor Karl Glazebrook of Swinburne, has been awarded the first

News: Swinburne announces major new collaborative opportunity with Caltech: Swinburne Astronomers to access Keck telescopes

Swinburne's Vice-Chancellor and the Centre for Astronomy and Supercomputing's Director have signed an MOU with Caltech which will see extensive collaboration in radio and optical astronomy over the next 5 yrs. This will include access to the world's largest and most powerful optical telescope: the twin 10m telescopes of the W. M. Keck Observatory for up to 20 nights a year. The observatory is situated at 4205m above sea level (above 60% of the Earth's atmosphere) on the summit of Hawaii's dormant Mauna Kea volcano. Access to this class of telescope will enable Swinburne astronomers to see objects further away and with more detail than has previously been possible for Australian observers. Swinburne astronomers will be the first group in Australia to have guaranteed access to the Keck telescopes.

CAS Keck page with photos

Swinburne Media Release

News: Swinburne Astronomers win large Australia-India collaborative grant

The Swinburne astronomy team, led by Prof. Matthew Bailes and Dr. Ramesh Bhat, was successfully awarded a major research grant by DIISR to pursue an innovative scientific programme with the Giant Metrewave Radio Telescope (GMRT), the largest and most powerful low frequency radio telescope in the world. A joint collaborative effort between Swinburne, Curtin, Australia Telescope National Facility and the National Centre for Radio Astrophysics (India), this programme will capitalise on the key infrastructure in India (the GMRT) and Australia (the Swinburne supercomputer) to develop and demonstrate important techniques (e.g. multi-beaming over wide field of view) relevant for the Square Kilometre Array project and use such newly developed capabilities of GMRT for novel science goals in the areas of pulsars and transients. Establishing an intercontinental interferometric link between Australia and India for Very Long Baseline Interferometry experiments is also among the main goals of the project.

News: Royal Astronomical Society prize for Swinburne Astronomers

An Australian and UK astronomy team, including Professor Warrick Couch and Professor Karl Glazebrook of Swinburne, has been awarded the first Group Achievement Award from the UK’s Royal Astronomical Society. The award was made in recognition of their part in the 2-degree Field Galaxy Redshift Survey (2dFGRS); measuring patterns in the distribution of galaxies on scales from 100 million to 1 billion light-years. Led by Professor Matthew Colless (Anglo-Australian Observatory) in Australia and Professor John Peacock (University of Edinburgh) in the UK, the thirty-three-member team spent ten years mapping the distribution in space of 220,000 galaxies using the 3.9-m Anglo-Australian Telescope (AAT) in New South Wales.

Appointments: Dr Emma Ryan-Weber and Dr Darren Croton

We are pleased to announce that Dr Emma Ryan-Weber and Dr Darren Croton will join our academic staff in the near future. Dr Ryan-Weber is currently at the University of Cambridge and her areas of expertise include HI and high redshift extragalactic astronomy. Dr Darren Croton is currently at the University of California, Berkeley and is involved in the modelling of extragalactic surveys using cosmological N-body simulations and semi-analytical modelling.

News: Adam Deller awarded prestigious Jansky Fellowship

Swinburne PhD student Adam Deller has been awarded the prestigious Jansky Fellowship from the National Radio Astronomy Observatory (NRAO) of the USA. Adam will be taking the first 1.5 years of this fellowship at NRAO itself, working on the software correlator required for the Long Baseline Array sensitivity upgrade; followed by 1.5 years at the University of California, Berkeley working with Professor Don Backer on the Portable Array to Probe the Epoch of Reionization (PAPER).

Outreach: Dancing with the Stars: connecting astronomy and art

Dance and science come together when Swinburne's astronomy centre gains an artist in residence. Choreographer, Frances d'Ath, has been absorbed in the creative process for two months and is about to reveal monadologie the work choreographed during hher residency at Swinburne's Centre for Astrophysics and Supercomputing. D'ath's Artist in Residence has been funded by the Australian Network for Art Technology/Arts Victoria.

Swinburne Media Release

Research: Laws of Nature may be flawed after all

A Swinburne astrophysicist has leapt another hurdle in the path to proving that our fundamental theories of physics are not what they seem. Dr Michael Murphy is part of a team that has, over recent years, uncovered surprising and controversial evidence suggesting the laws of physics may have been changing through cosmic time. In this latest move, Murphy has debunked a study which claimed to disprove his findings.

Swinburne Media Release

Research: Powerful Radio Burst Indicates New Astronomical Phenomenon

Astronomers at Swinburne University and West Virginia University (WVU) have identified a new mysterious burst of radio energy with the race now on to find more, paving the way for a new field of astronomy to emerge - similar to that achieved when the US military revealed the existence of gamma ray bursts in the 1970's.

Swinburne Media Release
NRAO Media Release
ABC News Coverage

News: Two prestigious fellowships awarded to Centre staff

Two prestigious five-year research fellowships have been awarded to researchers at Swinburne's Centre for Astrophysics and Supercomputing. Professor Warrick Couch, already a HiCi researcher, was awarded an Australian Professorial Fellowship (APF), while his colleague Dr Michael Murphy picked up a Queen Elizabeth II (QEII) Fellowship.

Full Media Release

Research: Fourteen new distant galaxies discovered - Galaxy 'hunting' made easy using the glare of cosmic flashlights

A Swinburne scientist is part of an international team of astronomers who have discovered over a dozen new galaxies halfway across the Universe. The discovery represents a major breakthrough in the field of distant galaxy 'hunting' and paves the way for more detailed studies of them.

Full Media Release

News: Prof. Warrick Couch receives prestigious international cosmology prize

Three Australian astrophysicists including Swinburne's Professor Warrick Couch are part of two international teams of scientists that will receive the prestigious 2007 Gruber Cosmology Prize for their discovery that the expansion of the Universe is accelerating.

More information

News: Staff recognised as HiCi researchers

Professor Karl Glazebrook has recently been recognised as a HiCi (high citation) researcher, an honour awarded to researchers whose citations rank them in the top 0.5 per cent of researchers in their field globally. He is the second HiCi researcher at the Centre, alongside Professor Warrick Couch

More information

News: ARC Success for Swinburne Astronomers

Swinburne Astronomers Prof. Warrick Couch, Prof. Duncan Forbes, Prof. Karl Glazebrook and Dr Chris Blake have been successful in obtaining 3 competitive Discovery grants from the Australian Research Council. The awards, worth over $1M, will be used to conduct research in the areas of galaxy evolution and cosmology including measuring the dark energy content of the Universe.

Media Release: Shedding light on Dark Energy

The largest ever galaxy survey to unveil nature 'fifth force'. Swinburne astrophysicists have been awarded a massive 220-night allocation from the Anglo-Australian Telescope (AAT), worth over $7 million, to study Dark Energy. The project will involve the largest-ever galaxy survey undertaken by the telescope and will measure some 300,000 distant galaxies.

More information

Appointments: Prof Karl Glazebrook

Later this year, Professor Karl Glazebrook will be joining Swinburne. Professor Glazebrook is presently a full professor at Johns Hopkins University in the United States. He has an outstanding track record with over 9000 citations of his work. Of his publications, 34 are ranked "high impact", meaning they are in the top 1% of the most highly cited publication in their year of publication. Clearly, with such an outstanding record, Professor Glazebrook will be a major addition to the University. Professor Glazebrook's outstanding abilities were recognised by the awarding of a 800K "blue sky" research grant from the Packard foundation, and he is leading some ambitious observational programmes at the world's largest telescopes into the nature of the distant Universe. Recognised as one of the world's leading observational cosmologists, Prof Glazebrook is currently helping to design the next generation of billion-dollar optical facilities.

Media: 'Lost' Dark Matter Found

Using Gemini observations of globular clusters in NGC 3379 (M105), a team led by PhD student Michael Pierce and Prof. Duncan Forbes of Swinburne University in Australia, have found evidence for normal quantities of dark matter in the galaxy's dark halo. This is contrary to previous observations of planetary nebulae that indicated a paucity of dark matter in the galaxy.

More information

Appointments: Prof Warrick Couch

Professor Warrick Couch, Head of School of Physics at the University of NSW will be joining the Centre for Astrophysics and Supercomputing from the middle of the year. Professor Couch is a high profile scientist, being a Citation Laureate, signifying that he is one of the 30 most highly cited scientists in Australia. Professor Couch in addition to the new Tier 1 appointments will greatly strengthen Swinburne's position as a leading centre for astronomy research.

Astronomy behind the scenes: public lectures

From telescopes to supercomputers and 3D simulations of outer space, a new series of public lectures run by Swinburne’s Centre for Astrophysics and Supercomputing (CAS) will look at how changing technologies have shaped our understanding of the universe.

More information

New planetarium product transforms portable domes

Full colour animation taking stargazers anywhere in the Universe will be available to the portable planetarium market with the release of MirrorDome, a new digital product developed by the Swinburne Centre for Astrophysics and Supercomputing.

More information

Australia and New Zealand ready for next generation telescope

Radio astronomers in Australia and New Zealand have joined forces to link telescopes separated by over 2500km in preparation for the next generation of telescope, the Square Kilometre Array (SKA).

The combined telescopes, located in the North Island of New Zealand and north-west New South Wales of Australia, have enabled astronomers to probe radio emission from a black hole, 4.5 billion light years distant from Earth. Astronomers were able to measure incredibly weak signals from a quasar (a supermassive black hole at the centre of a galaxy, expelling material at close to the speed of light, 300,000 km per second) one quarter of the way across the universe (4.5 billion light years away), with a time accuracy of 5 billionth of a second (5 nanoseconds).

More information

Astronomers return to basics to measure the largest x-ray flare ever seen from the Sun

Using a simple radio receiver and antenna costing $155, Australian astronomers have trumped X-ray detectors on vastly expensive satellites orbiting Earth to accurately measure the largest X-ray flare ever seen from the Sun.

Solar flares are explosions in the Sun's atmosphere caused by the sudden release of magnetic energy, with the associated radiation and electrified gas having the potential to damage communications and other satellites in Earth's orbit and to disrupt power systems and radio communications on Earth.

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Swinburne team traces an invisible planet

Swinburne University astronomers are turning to computer screens - rather than towards the night sky - in their search for elusive new planets.

PhD student Adam Deller and Senior Lecturer Dr Sarah Maddison from the Swinburne Centre for Astrophysics and Supercomputing have been using the university's supercomputer to predict the presence of planets invisible from earth.

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