Free Astronomy Public Lectures

Presented by Dr Edward (Ned) Taylor on Friday 18 October 2019.
At its most basic, astronomy is an attempt to understand the nature of the universe in which we find ourselves. As such, understandings of astronomy have always had a profound impact on how we conceive of and understand ourselves — as a society, if not as individuals. In this talk, I want to share my 'cosmic perspective’: some of the lessons from modern astronomy and astrophysics that I carry with me into my daily life, and how my understanding of the universe shapes how I see the world. I also want to reflect especially on this extraordinary moment in the history of humanity, of our planet, and indeed our universe, and how our visions for our future might be enhanced with a more cosmic perspective.

Presented by Renee Spiewak on Friday 20 September 2019. Like humans, stars often live their long lives in pairs, called binaries. At the end of their lives, they experience drastic transformations, rather than simply ending, and these transformations greatly affect their companions. In this lecture, I will take you on a journey of the many lives (and spectacular deaths/rebirths) of a massive star with a lighter companion star. The mass of a star, among other factors, determines the path it takes and the changes it experiences, and stars in binaries affect each other greatly. In a quiet stellar neighbourhood, this massive star will peacefully spend millions of years with its companion before undergoing a sudden transformation into one of the most extreme objects in the universe. Billions of years later, a second transformation will occur when the star’s companion quietly reaches the end of its life. However, under the right conditions, the pair’s story will not end there.

Presented by Kim Ellis on Friday, 19 July 2019. This will be an informative lecture on how Australia is making a splash on the international space arena as the Australian Space Agency turns one. We will also be celebrating the 50th anniversary of the moon landing.

Presented by Poojan Agrawal on the 21st June 2019. Beyond the twinkling dots in the night sky, there are all sorts of stars that are beautiful and fascinating their own sense. I will share the story of how we came to understand these stars as we know them today using the Hertzsprung-Russell diagram and the importance of the lives of these stars in the present-day astrophysical problems.

Presented by Uncle Wayne Thorpe, Krystal De Napoli and Dr Duane W. Hamacheron on Friday 30th May 2019. The Moondani Toombadool Centre and the Centre for Astrophysics and Supercomputing at Swinburne University of Technology are proud to host the 2019 Swinburne Annual Reconciliation Lecture. 2019 is the International Year of Indigenous Languages, the 50th anniversary of the Moon landing, and the year Indigenous Astronomy was included in the Australian National Curriculum. These have spawned a number of activities and scholarship between astronomers and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander elders across Australia. Join Gunnai and Yorta Yorta custodian for an open panel discussion about the many layers of Indigenous astronomical knowledge and exciting happenings in the world of astronomy and space.

Presented by Prof. Andreas Burkert on 29th March 2019. The Galactic Center is one of the most fascinating and extreme places in the Milky Way. Harboring a supermassive black hole with a mass of order four million solar masses, it experiences cycles of activity and star formation, separated by periods of quiescence that last of order a million years. The Milky Way’s supermassive black hole currently is inactive. However a small, diffuse gas cloud (G2) has recently been detected on an orbit almost straight into the Galactic Supermassive Black Hole. Like comet Shoemaker Levy’s 1994 collision with Jupiter, the big challenge has started for astrophysicists to predict the outcome of G2’s close encounter with the supermassive black hole. Their models will be validated directly by observations within the next decade.

Presented by Dr Daniel C Price on 22nd February 2019. Thanks to new, more powerful technology, astronomers can search the skies faster and with more resolution than ever before. In this public lecture, I will talk about two exciting fields in astronomy: the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI), and Fast Radio Bursts. The SETI field has been reinvigorated by the 10-year, $100M Breakthrough Listen initiative to search for intelligent life beyond Earth. As a project scientist for Breakthrough Listen, I will introduce the program and detail how we are using new technology to run the most comprehensive search for intelligent life beyond Earth ever undertaken. I will also discuss a mysterious phenomenon known as fast radio bursts: incredibly bright but short-lived signals from distant galaxies, which escaped detection until recently. Could these signals be due to intelligent aliens, or is there an astrophysical explanation? I will give an overview of how a telescope upgrade will help us answer this question, and how Swinburne astronomers will play a leading role. Finally, I will discuss what evidence would convince us that there is indeed life beyond Earth, or that the Universe is ours alone to enjoy.

Presented by Assoc. Prof. Tara Murphy on 23 November 2018. On August 17th 2017 the LIGO-Virgo interferometer detected gravitational waves from a neutron star merger in a galaxy 130 million light years away. This was a breakthrough for physics and astronomy. What followed was a frenzy of activity as astronomers around the world worked to detect electromagnetic radiation with conventional telescopes. After this unprecedented effort the event was detected in gamma-rays, x-rays, visible light and radio waves. I will discuss this incredible scientific result and its implications, including: predictions made by Einstein; the production of gold and other heavy elements; and our understanding of black hole formation. I will also give a 'behind the scenes' perspective of how it happened, and discuss the changes in the way we do science in this era of big astronomy.

Presented by Dr Duane Hamacher and Krystal De Napoli on 1st June 2018. The subject of Indigenous astronomy has skyrocketed in recent years all around the globe. A constant stream of emerging research is changing what we think we know about Aboriginal knowledge systems in Australia and the number of Aboriginal students studying astrophysics is rapidly growing. This lecture will introduce you to one of these students, Kamilaroi woman and astrophysics student Krystal De Napoli, and the research she and Dr Duane Hamacher are conducting with other Aboriginal researchers on topics ranging from Moon haloes, Sun Dogs, and supernovae to the antiquity of deep time oral traditions based on astronomical and geological evidence - even the official naming of Aboriginal stars by the IAU. This talk will explore the many ways in which Indigenous Australians encoded scientific information in their knowledge systems and some of the ways in which they pass this knowledge to successive generations.

Presented by Dr Duane Hamacher and Krystal De Napoli on 1st June 2018. The subject of Indigenous astronomy has skyrocketed in recent years all around the globe. A constant stream of emerging research is changing what we think we know about Aboriginal knowledge systems in Australia and the number of Aboriginal students studying astrophysics is rapidly growing. This lecture will introduce you to one of these students, Kamilaroi woman and astrophysics student Krystal De Napoli, and the research she and Dr Duane Hamacher are conducting with other Aboriginal researchers on topics ranging from Moon haloes, Sun Dogs, and supernovae to the antiquity of deep time oral traditions based on astronomical and geological evidence - even the official naming of Aboriginal stars by the IAU. This talk will explore the many ways in which Indigenous Australians encoded scientific information in their knowledge systems and some of the ways in which they pass this knowledge to successive generations.