Presented by Prof. Matthew Bailes on 30 September 2016. Almost 50 years ago Jocelyn Bell built a new telescope with her supervisor Antony Hewish that had an unusual property: it had high time resolution. The radio sky was thought to only change on long timescales but this new telescope's ability to explore a different regime of phase space meant that it made one of the greatest discoveries in astronomy, that of pulsars. Pulsars are neutron stars, the collapsed cores of once-massive stars. They h...
Sep 29, 2016•1 hr 21 min
Presented by on 22 July 2016 by Rebecca Allen. In the vast cold reaches of space life has been able to gain a foothold and flourish on at least one planet- ours. We know that water is critical to life, but we do not know how Earth got it. In this talk, we will first explore the ongoing search for the source of Earth's water. Next, we will talk about some of the exciting ways in which we are utilising our knowledge of life on this planet to search for and possibly identify life in other parts of ...
Aug 16, 2016•37 min
Presented on 17 June 2016 by Allan Duffy. In the last 50 years astronomers have come to realise that there exists an invisible type of mass in the Universe, outweighing all of the atoms in every star, planet and person five times over. It's responsible for holding the galaxy together, for making the galaxies form where they do in the cosmos and is our best guide to physics beyond the Higgs boson, aka the 'god' particle. Yet astronomers are no nearer to understanding its nature. Using a combinati...
Aug 15, 2016•49 min
Presented on 20 May 2016 by Amanda Karakas. Most of the elements in the periodic table heavier than hydrogen and helium were forged in stars. Through the combined studies of stellar spectroscopy, nuclear physics, geochemistry, and astrophysics, humans have been able to work out the origin of many of the chemical elements that naturally occur in our Solar System. We know for example that most of the oxygen in the air was forged in ancient supernova explosions, which are the end product of very ma...
Aug 11, 2016•45 min
Presented on 15 April 2016 by Dr Elisabete da Cunha. Almost one hundred years ago, astronomer Edwin Hubble revolutionised our understanding of the Universe and our place in it when he discovered that it extends beyond the Milky Way. Since then, astronomers have identified millions of galaxies beyond our own, and developed sophisticated techniques to measure their distances and motions. In this talk, I will show how astronomers map the Universe using large surveys of galaxies, and how "cosmic map...
Apr 21, 2016•1 hr 12 min
Presented on 18 March 2016 by Elodie Thilliez and Matthew Agnew. The Solar system is a remarkable place filled with wonderfully varied worlds. Travelling outwards from the sun we first encounter the hellish, rocky bodies of Mercury and Venus, continue to the cooler, water bearing world of Earth and our close neighbour Mars. Beyond the asteroid belt we hit the majestic gas giants of Jupiter and Saturn and continuing on our voyage we finally reach the cold ice giants of Uranus and Neptune. The Sol...
Mar 17, 2016•1 hr 4 min
Presented by Dr Pablo A. Rosado on 18th February 2016. One of the greatest scientific discoveries of all times was achieved last week: the first detection of gravitational waves, emitted by a black hole binary. This discovery follows decades of intense work, and opens a new window to the Universe. This talk, for scientists and for non-scientists, is about black hole binaries, and the dawn of gravitational wave astronomy. This talk is about the curious romance of Alice and Bob. Nobody has heard i...
Feb 17, 2016•1 hr 3 min
Presented on 4 December 2015 by Dr Lisa Harvey-Smith. What is Dark Matter? How did the solar system form? Was Einstein right about the nature of gravity? Are we alone in the universe? To tackle these fascinating questions and more, an international consortium of eleven nations is currently designing the 'Square Kilometre Array' (SKA) telescope. Comprising thousands of radio receivers located in Africa and Australia, the SKA will be the world's most powerful radio telescope. It will revolutionise...
Dec 03, 2015•1 hr 23 min
Presented by Dr Laura Wolz on Friday 23 October 2015. Radio telescopes have made numerous appearances in media and films due to their huge, mechanical appearances contrasting with the natural background. The gigantic size of the dishes are essential for observing cosmic objects in high resolution following the basic rule: the longer the wavelength, the bigger the dish. The construction efforts are worthwhile because radio waves can pass our atmosphere nearly unobscured and thus allow us to view ...
Oct 22, 2015•59 min
Presented by Associate Professor Kim-Vy Tran on Friday 9 October 2015. Since Galileo's time, our ability to study the universe has been driven by our ability to collect light from distant objects. Due to tremendous technological advances in the last few decades, we can now study the most distant galaxies known in the universe. In addition to seeing fainter objects at higher resolution, we can also view the universe at many different wavelengths ranging from gamma rays to radio waves. I highlight...
Oct 08, 2015•1 hr 10 min
Presented by Prof. Sarah Russell on 11 September 2015. 2015 has been decreed the International Year of Light by the United Nations, and in recognition of this we expand our public astronomy lecture series from telescopes to microscopes. Our immune system protects us from infections and cancer when it works well, and caused autoimmune diseases when it goes wrong. Understanding how immunity is regulated has enabled the development of vaccines, immunosuppressive drugs, and cancer immunotherapies, b...
Sep 15, 2015•56 min
Presented by Prof. Roger Davies on 4 September 2015. Using exceptional data from Hubble Space Telescope astronomers have discovered supermassive black holes, with masses ranging from millions to billions times the mass of the Sun, at the very centre of massive galaxies. Intriguingly the mass of this central black hole scales with many of the properties of the host galaxy, for example the total mass of the galaxy is about five hundred times the mass of the black hole. However the direct gravitati...
Sep 08, 2015•1 hr 1 min
Celebrate the International Year of Light and National Science Week 2015 with Assoc. Prof. Chris Fluke, as he hosts his fifth annual review of the State of the Universe. This year, the focus is on the visual Universe. No supercomputers. No radiotelescopes. Just good old fashioned astronomy with images. Taken from spacecraft. Which needed radio telescopes to collect the images on Earth. And computers to process them. Presented by Chris Fluke on 14 August 2015.
Aug 18, 2015•52 min
Presented by Emily Petroff on 19 June 2015. Most things in the Universe happen over millions or even billions of years but some things change on the timescales of human life and can be seen to change in a matter of months, days, or even seconds. These sources are called transients and are some of the most extreme events in the Universe, things like the collapse of a dying star, or a collision of two massive objects. Humans have been observing astronomical transients for centuries, from supernova...
Jul 07, 2015•1 hr 12 min
Presented by Prof. Jeremy Mould on 7th May 2015. The skies of northern Chile are considered the best in the world for astronomy at visible through millimetre wavelengths. Most of the observatories are in the Norte Chico and Atacama regions. Cerro Paranal Observatory is the largest in the world. The Atacama Large Millimeter Array is an international astronomical facility composed of a group of up to 66 radio antennae working together 5000 meters above sea level in the hghlands (Llano de Chajnanto...
May 06, 2015•58 min
Presented by Prof. Karl Glazebrook on 10th April 2015. The Universe began in the Big Bang now firmly established at 13.7 billion years ago. But then what? How did the hot expanding hydrogen of the early Universe turn in to the magnificent tapestry of the Universe we see around us? In this lecture I will tell the story of the galaxies, the building blocks of our Universe and how modern observations from large telescopes on the ground and in space have literally let us see how the galaxies have gr...
Apr 12, 2015•1 hr 2 min
Presented by James Benford on 13th March 2015. Messaging to Extra Terrestrial Intelligence (METI) is an issue dividing those who want to announce our presence to the cosmos by broadcasting to the nearer stars and those who advocate international consultations on the societal risk of such transmissions. METI is the opposite of searching (SETI). METI transmissions to date are faint and very unlikely to be detected. If we do send messages, who should speak for us and what should they say? Should in...
Mar 12, 2015•54 min
Presented by David J. Wilner on 13 February 2015. Where did the Earth come from? How can we know? How can particles no larger than those in smoke come together to make a planet thousands of kilometers wide? Amazingly, radio telescope observations of material surrounding infant stars are starting to show us signs of planet formation in action. This talk will introduce some of the basic ideas and open questions of planet formation, starting with naked eye observations and proceeding to the latest ...
Feb 13, 2015•58 min
Presented by Dr Katherine Mack on 7th December 2014. Everything humanity has ever seen or experienced represents a tiny speck in a vast and mysterious Universe. What else is out there, and how are we figuring it out? What puzzles still wait to be solved? Come with your questions about dark matter, dark energy, black holes, or the ultimate fate of the Universe as we delve into some of cosmology's most fundamental questions.
Dec 06, 2014•59 min
Presented by Assoc Prof. Virginia Kilborn on 7th November 2014. Hydrogen gas is one of the main components in a galaxy like our own Milky Way - but we can't see it when we gaze into the night sky. I will take you on a journey of the unseen parts of our Galaxy - and others like it - using sensitive observations taken with Australia's best radio telescopes. I will explain how astronomers use observations of hydrogen gas to determine the history, and predict the future, of galaxies in the universe....
Nov 06, 2014•1 hr 1 min
Presented by Prof. Sheila Rowan on 17th October 2014. The information carried by these signals will give us new insight into the hearts of some of the most violent events in the Cosmos - from black holes to the beginning of the Universe. A global network of gravitational wave detectors is in now reaching the final stages of construction, with first data expected in 2015. The nature of gravitational waves, how the detectors work and what the data from the detectors can tell us about the Universe ...
Oct 22, 2014•1 hr 5 min
Presented by Dr Pamela Gay on 7th October 2014. Scientific literacy is required if we want our global society to succeed, but for a variety of reasons, science isn't a passion for most people, and most of the people in science are stereotypical white men. This is particularly true in the field of astronomy. In order to build a future that is more inclusive, we need to celebrate the successes of diverse researchers, and we need to use many different pathways to bring people to astronomy. In this ...
Oct 06, 2014•1 hr 12 min
Presented by Associate Professor Darren Croton on 19th September 2014. Black holes are amongst the most bizarre objects predicted by Einstein's theory of General Relativity. Many people may not realise that our own galaxy hosts a supermassive black hole at its centre that is three million times more massive than our own Sun! In this talk Associate Professor Darren Croton discusses the physics of black holes and their formation, how they can grow to become so massive, active black hole 'quasars' ...
Sep 17, 2014•1 hr 8 min
Presented by Dr Jeff Cooke, Mark Durre and Associate Professor Michael Murphy on 18th July 2014. Swinburne University of Technology astronomers will share their stories of discovery using twin 10-metre telescopes at the W M Keck Observatory atop Mauna Kea, Hawaii at a free public lecture on 18 July. Each year since 2008, Swinburne astronomers have had 15 nights' exclusive access to the world's leading optical/infrared telescopes. Using the observatory's cutting-edge instrumentation, astronomers ...
Jul 17, 2014•1 hr 19 min
Presented Assoc. Prof. John O'Meara on 6th July 2014. Through the combination of large telescopes, advanced computer simulations and advancing theory, cosmologists have made significant progress in describing the universe on the largest scales and over cosmic times. However, many questions remain. Amongst these is a fundamental question underpinning the formation of galaxies - how do galaxies get the gas they need to fuel stars? In this talk, Assoc. Prof O'Meara will describe the hunt for this "...
Jun 04, 2014•1 hr 7 min
Presented by Dr Nick Lomb on 16th May 2014. Melbourne is brightly lit at night. Some lighting is needed for safety, security and to make the city centre an attractive place, but is it all necessary? Why are we lighting the sky when no one lives there? In this talk we will discuss good and bad lighting and consider the effects of night-time lighting on safety, on the environment, on nocturnal animals and, most importantly, on our health. We will end by discussing what we can do individually and c...
May 14, 2014•1 hr 3 min
Presented by Dr Jeff Cooke on 11th April 2014. In this talk, I will take you back to a time shortly after the Big Bang when the first stars emerged from the darkness. Many of these stars were much more massive than our Sun and ended their short lives as extraordinarily brilliant supernova explosions. Using new techniques and the power of the Keck telescopes in Hawaii, now controllable from Swinburne, we are able to detect supernova explosions that occurred more than 12 billion years ago and are ...
Apr 10, 2014•58 min
Presented by Dr Ivo Labbe on 21st March 2014. The arrival of modern space telescopes, such as the Hubble Space Telescope have ushered in a true golden age in astronomy. We can now peer farther and deeper into the universe than ever before and are getting an astonishing glimpse of the distant past. The most sensitive astronomical picture ever taken, the so-called Hubble Ultra Deep Field, reveals a time long gone when galaxies like our Milky way were only just forming, bursting with explosive star...
Mar 20, 2014•1 hr 13 min
Presented by Professor Duncan Forbes on 11th February 2014. Ancient star clusters are the fossils of the astronomical world. They formed at early times in the Universe and many have survived to the present day. New discoveries made with the Keck Observatory have uncovered a host of previously unknown star clusters - some more massive than small galaxies. Join us for an engaging presentation by Professor Duncan Forbes from Swinburne University, Australia, as he shares his current research and ask...
Feb 10, 2014•46 min
Presented by Dr Eyal Kazin on 8th November 2013. Astronomers and Physicists have an interesting ongoing relationship. Normally, physicists explain natural phenomena, and tell astronomers what they should be probing in space. Once in a while, however, astronomers point out observations that cause the theorists to poke in the dark for interpretations. Dr. Kazin will bring the audience up to speed on the frontiers of these golden ages of cosmology and explain why scientists are still baffled about ...
Nov 07, 2013•1 hr 3 min
