Astronomy in Australia
Newsletter #19
March 2020
Edited by Fred Watson
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Editorial
This Newsletter is being prepared at a time when the world is coming to grips with the seriousness of the COVID-19 outbreak. At the time of writing, the World Health Organisation has just classified it as a pandemic. The scientific world is impacted as much as any other sphere of activity. The last-minute cancellation of the American Physical Society’s March Meeting has sent shock waves through the community, not least for the 11,000 delegates who were registered for the event. In the world of astronomy and space science, there are several major international meetings scheduled for later in the year. No doubt organisers are thinking seriously about the viability of these events in the light of what we know so far – an unenviable task, given the uncertainties. And, of course, our thoughts are with anyone who is directly affected by the virus.
On a more cheerful note, there is much to report in the astronomy activities of the Department and its partner institutions since Newsletter 18. Australian astronomers have done well in the latest allocation of ESO telescope time, while a second Australian-ESO conference in Perth was a great success, with around 120 astronomers attending from Australia and overseas. And, at longer wavelengths, the SKA Organisation held its most recent Board Meeting at Jodrell Bank Observatory on 28 February 2020, while Australia is close to ratifying the SKA Observatory Convention, which was signed in Rome a year ago.
Astronomy outreach continues to flourish, with 2020’s Leap Day being marked by a hugely successful Perth Astrofest. The flagship WA event brought talks and exhibits from all quarters of the astronomy community, both professional and amateur, in an evening that drew big crowds to Curtin University’s stadium, theatres and sportsgrounds. It was particularly good to see so many enthusiastic youngsters there.
This Newsletter is brought to you with the help of many colleagues and it’s a pleasure to acknowledge their generous support, particularly Andrew Stevenson, Bob Eccles and Briana Grame of SKA and Astronomy Branch, and Stuart Ryder of AAL – not to mention all the contributors credited below. Thanks everyone.
Fred Watson
Astronomer-at-Large
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Outreach News
Seen at the Perth Astrofest on February 29th...
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Looking after the SKA stand with friends from CSIRO and the SKA Organisation, the Department’s Bob Eccles welcomed a steady stream of visitors. This particular one seemed to take more than a passing interest in the prototype SKA1-Low antenna. Perhaps it bore a resemblance to a distant relative…? (Credit Bob Eccles)
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Visit to MWA
After the Astrofest, I took the opportunity to visit the Curtin University control centre of the Murchison Widefield Array (MWA), one of the four precursor instruments for the SKA. This remarkable telescope, built and operated by a partnership of more than 20 Australian and international institutions, had made the news headlines the previous week for its part in the discovery of the biggest cosmic explosion ever detected. It was a great pleasure to glean many insights into the instrument and its work from Director Melanie Johnston-Hollitt and her staff – not to mention enjoying the best morning tea! Thank you to all involved.
Fred Watson
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Major Astronomy Communication Conference to be held in Sydney
The International Astronomical Union has announced its 2020 Communicating Astronomy to the Public conference, to be held at Macquarie University during the week 21-25 September. Under the central theme of “Communicating Astronomy for a better world: environment, culture and peace”, the Scientific Organising Committee is building an exciting program of presentations, posters and workshops. Early-bird registration is available until 31 May, with a final registration deadline of 4 September.
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In case you missed it...
The International Astronomical Union’s hundredth birthday year wrapped up at the end of 2019, but the short video prepared in Australia and released last November can still be found online.
‘Under One Sky: Astronomy around the World - Australia’ describes the last 100 years of multiwavelength astronomy in Australia, featuring key facilities and the people behind the science.
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European Southern Observatory News
Science highlight - fading Betelgeuse reveals its secrets
The extraordinary resolving power of the SPHERE instrument on ESO’s Very Large Telescope has been demonstrated by new images of the red supergiant star Betelgeuse. Sitting at Orion’s left shoulder (as seen from Earth), Belegeuse is one of the most prominent stars in the night sky, but has been fading in brightness over the past few months, dropping to as little as 38 per cent of its normal intensity.
The star is so big that it would easily encompass the orbit of Mars if it were at the centre of the Solar System. Its vast size makes it one of the few stars capable of being resolved into a disc, despite its distance of some 700 light years. SPHERE’s ‘before’ and ‘after’ images clearly show the lower-intensity region of the surface responsible for the dimming. It is not yet clear whether this is a cooler region of Betelgeuse’s surface caused by a gigantic starspot, or the result of dust ejected from the star’s atmosphere. An infrared image obtained by the VLT shows complex dust plumes surrounding the star, suggesting the latter hypothesis might be nearer the truth. This is supported by new data obtained at the Lowell Observatory in Arizona.
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Betelgeuse in its normal guise (left), and with the mysterious dimming that has characterised it in recent months. It’s easy to see why the star’s overall brightness has declined. (Credit: ESO/M.Montargès et al.)
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ESO Period 106 Call for Proposals released
The European Southern Observatory (ESO) has released a Call for Proposals for Period 106 (for observations between 1 October 2020 and 31 March 2021). Under the terms of the Strategic Partnership between ESO and Australia, Australian-based astronomers have access to the facilities of the La Silla and Paranal Observatories, specifically the:
- 3.6-m telescope (3.6);
- New Technology Telescope (NTT);
- Very Large Telescope (VLT);
- Very Large Telescope Interferometer (VLTI);
- Visible and Infrared Survey Telescope for Astronomy (VISTA); and
- VLT Survey Telescope (VST).
Proposals for ESO time (in late August, October and December 2020) to use the Atacama Pathfinder EXperiment ( APEX) antenna on Chajnantor will also be considered on the same basis as those from any ESO member state.
The proposal deadline is Thursday 26 March 2020 at noon Central European Time (10pm Australian Eastern Daylight Time, 7pm Australian Western Standard Time).
For a summary of how to apply, and to see what is new in Period 106, please see AAL’s Applying for ESO Time page and the Australian ESO Forum.
Stuart Ryder
AAL
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Second ESO-Australia conference a success!
More than 100 astronomers from Australia, ESO member states and elsewhere, gathered at the University of Western Australia in Perth from 17–21 February 2020 for the 2nd ESO- Australia joint conference, this time on the topic “The Build-up of Galaxies Through Multiple Tracers and Facilities”. Participants shared the latest results on everything from galaxy simulations to the host galaxies of Fast Radio Bursts. What was striking was how many of these results made use of one or more Australian radio telescopes like ASKAP and MWA, and ESO telescopes like APEX and the VLT. Congratulations to ICRAR and the organisers led by Claudia Lagos and Adam Stevens on such a well-run event in the face of the growing coronavirus threat. Plans are now underway for a 3rd ESO-Australia joint conference in 2021, potentially in Europe.
Stuart Ryder
AAL
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ESO Users Committee's annual poll
I am contacting you as your European Southern Observatory (ESO) Users Committee (UC) representative. The UC represents ESO’s astronomical community forming a direct link between the users and ESO. The UC acts as an advisory body to the ESO Director General on matters related to the performance, scientific access, operation and user interfaces to the La Silla Paranal Observatory and ALMA. The UC welcomes opinions and suggestions from the community either through direct contact with the UC members (e.g. by replying to this email) or through the annual basis we ask users for feedback through our User Committee Poll, which has just opened.
This year there is a special focus on Time Domain Astrophysics. The poll is open until 1 April 2020. It is an anonymous survey that is conducted independently of ESO by the UC, so your answers will only be seen by the UC members who will use them as input for the UC annual report and discussions during the annual meeting of the UC and ESO scheduled on 29-30 April 2020. During the UC meeting, updates from ESO and feedback from the user community are exchanged and openly discussed. The meeting webpage includes a record of the last meeting with recommendations that will be discussed in April.
As Australian ESO users, it is important that you complete the annual UC poll or contact me directly with comments so I can use your feedback to best represent you.
Caroline Foster
USyd
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SKA News
SKA Update
Following the recent successful System Critical Design Review, attention within the SKA Organisation has turned to the preparation of the Construction Proposal and the Observatory Establishment and Delivery Plan, which covers planning for operations, business-enabling functions and future developments. A meeting of the SKA Organisation’s Board in Manchester on 28 February 2020 agreed to develop these documents with the aim of realising the full Phase 1 scope of the SKA by delivering the agreed Design Baseline for the two transformational telescopes: SKA1-Low in Australia and SKA1-Mid in South Africa.
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Ratification of the SKA Observatory Convention
The SKA Observatory, which will be the intergovernmental organisation responsible for building and operating the telescopes, can only be created once the three host countries (Australia, South Africa and the United Kingdom), plus two other member countries, have ratified the SKA Observatory Convention. The convention outlines each country’s commitments to the new organisation. Australia took a big step towards its ratification on 3 December 2019, when the Joint Standing Committee on Treaties handed down a report that recommended that the government take binding treaty action in relation to the convention.
With the Netherlands and Italy having already ratified, and South Africa and the United Kingdom making significant progress, we're all working to have the new Observatory established as soon as possible this year.
Bob Eccles
PS The latest edition of Contact (the SKA’s very own magazine) is now out. Well worth a read (once you’ve finished this Newsletter… ed.)
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Science highlight - swirling space detected by SKA pathfinders
There is nothing quite so cool as the idea that matter bends spacetime – except for the idea that rotating matter drags spacetime around with it. This consequence of General Relativity was confirmed in the case of the Earth by the NASA/Stanford satellite Gravity Probe B in the mid 2000s. But the frame-dragging effect had never been observed elsewhere – until now. Over the past 20 years, observations of a pulsar orbiting a white dwarf star have measured the effect of the rotating white dwarf dragging spacetime around with it, and perturbing the orbit of the pulsar. Precision timing allowed measurements to be made with an accuracy of 30 km, which is extraordinary for an object 10,000 light years distant. The observations were conducted using two SKA pathfinders: CSIRO’s Parkes Telescope and the Molonglo Observatory Synthesis Telescope. And the international team of astronomers carrying out the work included one of SKAO’s Project Scientists, Dr Evan Keane.
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Depiction of the spinning white dwarf dragging local space-time – and carrying the orbit of the nearby pulsar with it. (Credit Mark Myers/ARC Centre of Excellence for Gravitational Wave Discovery (OzGrav).)
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SSO News
Dust, Smoke and Mirrors...
The past six months at Siding Spring Observatory (SSO) has been one of frequent dust storms and smoke. Thankfully, during the past month, it has started to rain and the countryside is turning green. The smoke and dust coats everything, including telescope mirrors, which means that the mirrors lose reflectivity over time. The primary mirrors of most telescopes at SSO are aluminised about once a year, and Siding Spring staff have just realuminised the 3.9-metre primary mirror of the Anglo-Australian Telescope (AAT).
The process involves removing the dirty 16 tonne mirror from its cell and lowering it by crane from the fourth floor of the AAT to the second floor, where it is stripped of the old coating and cleaned. Once cleaned, it is placed into a large vacuum chamber. Pumping the chamber down takes many hours, but the actual recoating only takes minutes. The result is a freshly coated mirror and very happy SSO staff:
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Once recoated, the mirror goes back into the mirror cell which then goes back onto the telescope. The whole process takes four days. The telescope will be then be ready for astronomers to use and make amazing discoveries, like the one made at the AAT last year. Astronomers using the AAT discovered a star that has been ejected from our galaxy after becoming a bit too friendly with the supermassive black hole at the galaxy’s centre. To find out more, visit this website.
Chris Lidman
ANU
(For more details of the ‘secret ritual’ of aluminising the AAT mirror, check out this short video, beautifully produced by former AAO astronomer Andy Green… ed.)
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Other astronomy news
New opportunity - Gemini GSAOI Observing Time for Australian community
In Semesters 2020B and 2021A, the Australian astronomical community will have access to observing time with the Gemini South Adaptive Optics Imager (GSAOI) at the Gemini Telescope in Chile. This opportunity is a result of the agreement between AURA and the ANU team that constructed an enhancement to the Gemini South Multi Conjugate Adaptive Optics System (GeMS). Adaptive optics (AO) systems require a wavefront reference source of light, called a guide star, that has to be sufficiently bright for this purpose. The new Natural Guide Star (NGS2) system, commissioned in October 2019, allows much fainter guide stars than used in the past. This results in a huge improvement of the available sky coverage that the GeMS system can access. It also leads to a reduction in acquisition times by almost tenfold! The ANU team was awarded a total of seven nights of guaranteed time, which they have kindly offered to the Australian community via an open call for proposals.
Lucyna Chudczer
AAL
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Satellite constellations
ESO has entered the current debate about the impact of satellite constellations on astronomical observations. Since SpaceX launched its first tranche of Starlink internet service satellites in May 2019, the astronomical community has expressed its concerns. Potentially, there will be tens of thousands of spacecraft in the Starlink, OneWeb, Kuiper and other constellations. Organisations like the International Astronomical Union have provided statements on the issue, while the American Astronomical Association hosted a panel discussion at its annual meeting in Honolulu in January.
ESO has now released a new study that analyses the likely impact on optical/infrared facilities in detail. As expected, it comes to the conclusion that wide field imaging telescopes are most at risk from the new constellations. The Vera C. Rubin Telescope (formerly LSST) is particularly vulnerable. Nevertheless, the telescope’s Chief Scientist, Tony Tyson, has expressed ‘cautious optimism’ that a solution to the detrimental effects of satellite constellations will be found.
SpaceX is liaising with astronomers, and at least one experimental darkened Starlink satellite has been launched and is currently manoeuvring to its operational orbit. In general, with different constellations operating at different orbital heights, mitigation is a complex problem, but the ESO study shows that it is possible. At present, the threat to the SKA is low, since Starlink operates at frequencies much higher than those used by the SKA-Low and SKA-Mid arrays.
Fred Watson
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Congratulations...
To Professor Rachel Webster AO, who was appointed an Officer of the Order of Australia in the 2020 Australia Day Honours. Rachel is Head of Astrophysics at the University of Melbourne, and Board Chair of Astronomy Australia Ltd. Her citation highlights her distinguished service to education in the field of astrophysics, to astronomical research, and to young women scientists.
To Professor Lisa Kewley, Director of the ARC Centre of Excellence for All Sky Astrophysics in 3D (ASTRO 3D) and ARC Laureate Fellow at the ANU Research School of Astronomy and Astrophysics. Lisa is the first Australian (in fact, the first person in the Southern Hemisphere!) to be awarded the US National Academy of Science’s biennial James Craig Watson Medal in its 133-year history. The award recognises Lisa’s contributions to studies of galaxy formation and evolution, and will be presented in April in Washington DC.
And to Neville Legg, former General Manager of the Australian Astronomical Observatory, and former Operations Manager of AAO-Macquarie following the 2018 transition. Neville has recently attained the status of Chartered Manager, an internationally-recognised qualification representing the gold standard of management excellence. As Neville himself says, ‘onward and upward!’
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Space briefs...
Australian Space Agency HQ opened
Congratulations to the Australian Space Agency on the opening of its new home in Adelaide on 19 February. The Agency shares its location in Adelaide’s Lot Fourteen with other space industry players including the SmartSat Cooperative Research Centre and CSIRO. Eventually, the building will house the Space Agency’s Mission Control and the Australian Space Discovery Centre.
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COSPAR 2020 to be held in Sydney
From 15 to 22 August, the Sydney International Convention Centre will be home to the 43rd COSPAR Scientific Assembly, the world’s major space forum. (Editor’s note: the link to the conference page is worth following, even if only for the promotional video clip by anchor sponsor Lockheed Martin… guaranteed to stir the soul!)
With a strong industry focus, the assembly is expected to attract a large gathering of specialists in all aspects of the off-planet economy. A particular highlight is STEM COSPAR 2020, giving young people an opportunity to attend. The initiative includes an ‘open afternoon’ for students considering further studies to participate in the exhibition and poster display at the Congress, and to interact with space experts. There is also a Space Park initiative called ‘COSPAR-K’ that will run alongside COSPAR 2020, so teachers and students can explore activities in a creative environment. Let’s hope COVID-19 is just a memory by then.
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Academy Briefs...
Australia's Future in Space
Although the deadline for community submissions has now past, Newsletter readers might like to be aware that the National Committee for Space and Radio Science is currently developing Australia’s Future in Space – a strategic plan for space science. Consultation has occurred through surveys, focus group interviews and town-hall events throughout the early part of this year, giving the Australian space research community the opportunity to contribute.
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Early-and Mid-Career Researcher (EMCR) Forum
The Australian Academy of Science Early- and Mid-Career Researcher (EMCR) Forum serves as a voice for Australia’s early- and mid-career researchers, and champions improvement in the national research environment through advocacy. Its focus is on sustainable and transparent career structures, gender equity, stable funding policies, career development opportunities, and raising awareness of issues facing the future of science. This is a forum run by and for all early- and mid-career researchers in science, technology, engineering and mathematics in Australia, providing information and contacts to help researchers develop a career in and around STEM. The site includes information on the Forum, how to become a member, submissions and position statements made in response to government enquiries reviews, Forum resources, events and opportunities, profiles of selected members, and a fast facts document about the Forum.
Andrew Stevenson
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Dark Sky News
ADSA (Australasian Dark Sky Alliance) Presents to the Local Government Chief Officers Group Meeting
“The level of engagement amongst the delegates to the ideas and concepts in your presentation…. clearly resonated with the audience.”
Local governments are getting the message about light pollution and ways to reduce it. Landon Bannister, ADSA’s Technical Committee Chair and Board Director presented to the Local Government Chief Officers ideas on how, why and what they can do to help reduce light pollution. His presentation directed the Chief Officers’ attention to the Light Pollution Guidelines for Wildlife including Marine Turtles, Seabirds and Migratory Shorebirds, and highlighted the database of night sky friendly luminaires, recognised through the ADSA APPROVED certification scheme.
The guidelines, acknowledged globally by COP13 (Convention on the Conservation of Migratory Species of Wild Animals), raise awareness of the potential impacts of artificial light on wildlife and provide a framework for assessing and managing these impacts. ADSA APPROVED luminaires are independently assessed with strict criteria to reduce glare, comply with Australian Standard AS4282, and have no upward light-spill.
Marnie Ogg
Australasian Dark Sky Alliance
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And a not-so-dark-sky rarity…
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A polar-night tour in far northern Scandinavia at the beginning of the year brought not only aurora borealis sightings, but also rare polar stratospheric clouds, visible in the polar twilight over several days. Seen here at Björkliden near Sweden’s Abisko National Park, they are high enough to catch sunlight, even though the Sun is below the horizon at ground level. The spectacular colours come from diffraction in acidic ice crystals. Atmospheric scientists at the Swedish Institute for Space Physics in nearby Kiruna have informally linked their appearance to chlorine from CFCs.
Fred Watson
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On behalf of the Australian SKA & Astronomy teams
Fred Watson
Astronomer-at-large
Science and Commercialisation Policy Division
Department of Industry, Science, Energy and Resources
Square Kilometre Array | ska@industry.gov.au
Optical astronomy in Australia | opticalastronomy@industry.gov.au
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