Astronomy
Above: The bright red bowl, or arc, seen in this image traces the outer surface of the dense dust cloud encasing the young stars. This arc is made up primarily of organic compounds called polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, which glow on the surface of the cloud. Ultraviolet light from a nearby bright star outside of the image is "eating away" at these molecules. Eventually, this light will destroy the dust envelope and the masked young stars will emerge.
Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
Teaching
Do you wonder about our place in the universe? Would you like to find out how stars really work or learn about the wonderfully bizarre features of our local or not so local planets? Do you imagine wrestling with the complexity of the space-time continuum? If so, then you can make an excellent start by enrolling in the Astronomy degree through the Department of Imaging and Applied Physics at Curtin University.
Research
The Curtin Institute of Radio Astronomy (CIRA) concentrates its research effort into a range of projects in the area of radio astronomy, including aspects of next generation telescopes such as the Square Kilometre Array and the Murchison Widefield Array. CIRA are heavy users of Australia Telescope National Facility instruments such as Parkes and the Australia Telescope Compact Array, for projects including Very Long Baseline Interferometry, studies of active galactic nuclei and radio galaxies, transient radio phenomena, and pulsars. Undergraduate and postgraduate (Masters and PhD) projects are available in a wide variety of radio astronomy research areas. CIRA maintains a 20 node (dual-processor, quad-core machines = 160 core) parallel computer dedicated to data processing, with approximately 100 TB (100 TB = 100,000 Gigabytes) of data storage space.
Engineering
Curtin activities in radio astronomy have a strong engineering component, including the design and prototyping of new instrumentation for antennas and in digital signal processing. The Curtin Institute of Radio Astronomy is currently establishing a fully equipped radio astronomy engineering laboratory that will be used for engineering research that feeds into the research and teaching programs. Strong links between the teaching, research and engineering aspects of radio astronomy ensure that undergraduate and postgraduate students are fully exposed to all aspects of modern radio astronomy.
News
Overview of the Square Kilometre Array (SKA) by Curtin’s Professor Peter Hall and colleagues (reprinted from the URSI Radio Science Bulletin). Download here. [871 kB]
Curtin expertise boosts State’s international radio astronomy research centre
