Media releases
AUSTRALIAN ASTRONOMY: BEYOND 2000
8 August 1995
The nation's astronomers have recently put the finishing touches to a decade plan for Australian Astronomy. The President of the Academy, Sir Gustav Nossal, will launch Australian Astronomy: Beyond 2000 at the Australian Academy of Science at 3.30 pm on Tuesday, 8 August 1995. The report was prepared by the Academy's National Committee for Astronomy. The work was supported by the Australian Research Council in its series of discipline research strategies.
Modern astronomical discoveries are the fruit of high technology development, and these new telescopes and instruments have a corresponding price tag. Australian Astronomy: Beyond 2000 is the product of the community of astronomers in Australia's universities and observatories getting together in working groups and asking themselves what are the important scientific questions for the next decade and what are the new techniques which are most promising?
The guiding strategy developed in the report is:
- to foster Australia's special scientific and technological strengths
- to take full advantage of Australia's Southern Hemisphere location
- to exploit advanced technologies across the full electromagnetic and particle spectrum
- to integrate domestic and international facilities
Special emphasis is put on education. Astronomy is a gateway to science and technology for young people, and the problem solving skills astronomy graduates learn are useful literally universally.
In surveying all of the opportunities for Australia to invest in new astronomical problems the report gives top priority to joining the European Southern Observatory. ESO, as it is called, is building the world's largest telescope for optical and infrared wavelengths on a mountaintop in northern Chile. The telescope is called the VLT (Very Large Telescope) and it consists of four 8-metre diameter telescopes operated as an array, together with a set of 1.8 metre auxiliaries, making up an interferometer.
If Australia enters this intergovernmental organisation, Australia will have a highly significant role in developing the interferometer, a device which allows separated telescopes to operate with the resolution of a single telescope as large in area as the distances between the telescopes. The principle has been pioneered by Sydney University at optical wavelengths. This is an example of 'fostering our special strengths'. Choosing the VLT as the project for Australian participation also exemplifies the other three strategies quoted above. Australian astronomers have recognised for some time that partnership is the only way for Australia to take part in 'big science'. If the Australian government decides to join, Australia will be a 5% partner in ESO and support 5% of ESO's $120M/year operating budget. That percentage is Australia's GDP share in the consortium.
ESO and the VLT will empower Australian astronomers in many ways: ten times more resolving power to unlock the secrets of the centre of the Galaxy, twice as much look back time with which to see galaxies evolving and the protogalactic clouds gathering. ESO's submillimeter telescope will open new radio astronomy windows too.
In the last few years Chile with its high Andes mountains has been shown to be the best astronomical site in the Southern hemisphere. Looking forward a few years, it will hardly be important to an astronomer where a telescope is located. All telescope access will be on the information superhighway. Australia's contribution to ESO will be in the form of high-tech robotic instrumentation prototyped in local observatories and innovative companies. The best Australian facilities and ESO together will make a powerful combination, greatly multiplying the value of a 5% share of the new facility.
Australian Astronomy: Beyond 2000 foresees other new astronomical facilities for Australian scientists. The report recommends an immediate upgrade of the Australia Telescope National Facility (centred on Narrabri, NSW) to work at higher frequencies. This facility will have the highest radio resolution in the Southern hemisphere and tell us much about how stars form from thick clouds of very low temperature interstellar gas.
Australian Astronomy: Beyond 2000 recommends design studies of space instrumentation for Astronomy. NASA has asked whether Australia is interested in its next infrared astronomy mission. A design study is also recommended for an international cosmic ray observatory which might be based in South Australia. The origin of some of the rarest and most energetic particles to reach us from space is not understood.
Astronomers are also paying keen attention to their colleagues in Physics who are attempting to develop gravitational wave detectors.
Finally, Australian Astronomy: Beyond 2000 looks forward, as the name implies, to the year 2000, beyond what is being built or planned, to what can be imagined. Could radio telescopes be made ten times larger at reasonable cost? Could the Antarctic plateau be the best astronomical site on the planet? What would it take to make an international antarctic observatory operational? The report recommends astronomical site-testing in Antarctica and novel radio antenna large array studies.
With brainstorming, planning, prioritisation, investment and innovation, Astronomy in this country should remain at the frontier.
