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Star gazers
Swinburne University astronomers Michelle Cluver and Edward Taylor . Picture : David Geraghty / Newswire .
Researchers to fill space in our knowledge of the universe .
By Tim Dodd
Two Swinburne University astronomers are embarking on a major project that will unlock a flood of information on six million galaxies in the sector of the universe nearest our Milky Way galactic home .
Edward Taylor and Michelle Cluver , both associate professors at Swinburne , are leading a multi-national 70-strong team to carry out the work using the European Southern Observatory ’ s 4MOST telescope facility in Chile .
Over five years , starting in 2024 , the telescope will gather data from every one of the six million target galaxies , plugging a massive gap in astronomical knowledge . While the new James Webb Space Telescope , launched last year , is amazing the world with images of early galaxies more than 13 billion light years away , we still lack key information about the galaxies in our “ local ” area , up to three billion light years away .
Measurements sought by Professor Taylor and Professor Cluver include each galaxy ’ s distance from us , its velocity and its mass .
“ By measuring the mass and the motion , we ’ re going to get a complete gravitational
map of the southern universe ,” Professor Taylor said .
Their work , particularly the measurement of distance to each galaxy , will be the key to interpreting a host of other observations of galaxies made by other astronomy platforms such as the Square Kilometre Array radio telescope , the new Vera Rubin Legacy Survey of Space and Time , the European Space Agency ’ s planned Euclid space telescope and the now decommissioned NASA satellite , the Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer .
“ All those different data sources tell you different things ( about galaxies ). But without the distance you don ’ t have access to any of those pieces of information ,” Professor Taylor said .
“ Without that distance information , those big facilities are blind to what ’ s right in front of them .”
While galaxies visible from the northern hemisphere are already being mapped in a US-based project costing $ 75m , the effort at Swinburne is low-cost .
“ We had to work out how we could do it on a much smaller budget ,” Professor Cluver said . She said they were fortunate to be able to plug into the existing infrastructure at the European Southern Observatory .
“ If we had to do this by ourselves , there ’ s no way we could do it . We just don ’ t have the resources ,” Professor Cluver said .
To keep costs down the pair are using a joint Swinburne-Curtin University initiative –
We still lack key information about the galaxies in our ‘ local ’ area .
Astronomy Data and Computing Services – to help them accurately locate the galaxies , and they also have access to Swinburne ’ s super computer .
Without that , Professor Taylor said , the project could not succeed .
Even though they lack big resources , the two astronomers still managed to get allocated 235 observation nights on the Chile telescope over the five-year period of the project .
The telescope needs to gather light for 20 minutes from each of the six million target galaxies to obtain enough data about each one .
The recently upgraded 4MOST telescope , which the two astronomers are using , employs an Australian-developed robotic system called AESOP to efficiently capture and store information from thousands of stars and galaxies at once .
First , the telescope fixes on one sector of the sky and then tiny robots align 2448 optical fibres with the images of separate stars and galaxies visible in that sector . The system enables light to be gathered and analysed , and data saved , from 2448 target stars or galaxies simultaneously . ■
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