Melbhenge is where the Sun sets at 7:57pm (get there at least 15 minutes before) at exactly 250 degrees, meaning it aligns perfectly with a mile of skyscrapers in Melbourne’s Hoddle-grid. Remember, please don’t look directly at the Sun! But viewed safely this is a truly gorgeous evening event (just enjoy J L R Reyes’s work from last year!) and finding exactly the best place to view is always important. This year it’s particularly important we move out across the city to find the best spot (tag your photo with location and #Melbhenge) as we have to ensure we keep a safe, social distance from one another. So be safe and enjoy the Sun responsibly friends.
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A fantastic initiative by The Project to showcase some science experiments you can do at home. Alongside our experiments, they also brought together amazing resources such as the free RiAus education packs or NASA STEM@Home, perfect for students or teachers (and parents!) exploring this strange new quarantined world of teaching at home.
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I don’t want this to sound like an Oscar acceptance speech but this is truly an incredible (and humbling!) honour to serve on the Australian Space Agency’s inaugural Space Industry Leader’s Forum. It’s even more humbling when you see my fellow exceptionally experienced and talented colleagues on this Forum…!
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One of the great strengths of the Royal Institution of Australia is our community of distinguished figures from science, education and industry, who have made this Nation better through science; we call them our Braggs. At a fancy lunch that brings together distinguished guests, former recipients and of course our new Braggs we celebrate their achievements and encourage all involved to collaborate in the hopes that a room full of brilliant will do brilliant things, both with the RiAus but also beyond it.
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Victoria's state government will contribute $5 million to build the Stawell Underground Physics Laboratory.
The funding has been announced by Victoria’s state Minister for Regional Development, Jaclyn Symes, and matches the federal government’s funding commitment confirmed in April. The laboratory will be built one kilometre underground, within the Stawell Gold Mine, as a bespoke excavated cavity 30 metres long, 10 metres wide and 10 metres high. It will provide ultra-low background research facilities (free from the particles that form background radiation) needed in the ground-breaking search for dark matter.
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Really excited to finally share something that’s been in the works for a while, I’ll be lending my weight to a national grant program for schools to purchase cool experiments - through the OfficeMax and Winc STEAM Grant-Bot Program.
To all school teachers out there, just submit a 250 word (or less) entry before July 12 on the www.impressgrantbot.com.au site explaining why you and your school deserve to win. Smart algorithm ‘Grant-Bot’ will select the finalists (with my and leading whale researcher Dr Vanessa Pirotta’s help!) to be in the running to win their share of $50,000 worth of STEAM grants.
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This is the heart of darkness.
The gravity of the blackhole is so great it casts a ‘shadow’ 2.5 times larger than itself (as defined by its event horizon) against the glowing material swirling into its maw.
That darkness is the size of the solar system but even so 6.5 billion Sun’s worth of mass crushes up pretty small when you’re a black hole.
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Turn your smartphone into a cosmic ray hunter with the free CREDO app! Currently available on Android (any Apple developers out there get in contact) and already with 2.5 million detections the growing userbase is helping us search for the most extreme events in the Universe. Not that this helped me with Virginia on News Breakfast who asked me some seriously tough (but as usual, brilliant) questions on the health risks of Cosmic Rays.
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We have two chances this year - on both Thursday and Friday evening the Sun sets perfectly for MelbHenge which is lucky as it’s otherwise going to be a tougher time due to poor weather for the ever-growing grassroots effort to map out the best place to view it. Remember this phenomenon of a setting Sun framed by a mile long canyon of Melbourne's skyscrapers is both awesome but also dependent on favourable weather, but you only need a brief gap in the clouds to when the Sun is so low on the horizon, so head out from 8.15pm onwards and cross your fingers.
Last year most sat on Treasury steps, looking directly at the Sun unfortunately (please please don’t do that!) but for those who enjoy the photo from their phones please share it online with your location and hashtag so Swinburne University of Technology can map out the best viewing points and let’s get this as big as Manhattenhenge!
Headline photo from last year is courtesy of Melbourne photographer Jonathan L R Reyes, find him on insta @jlrreyes or his website
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OK two times in one week being on one of the biggest shows in the nation talking science? Amazing.
This time tried to explain the importance of NASA outsourcing the Return to the Moon to commercial aerospace companies (especially startups). It’s an exciting development but needs careful watching.
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An insane week of astronomy meant that I was able to explain the latest astrophysics discoveries to over a million viewers with The Project - but from the desk! This is a big deal, and my nerves knew it! The live studio audience really helps ramp up the energy too..!
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Delivering they keynote address for the South Australian Science Excellence Awards is an intimidating prospect - how do you teach such a learned audience? Surely they had already heard everything I could say. Well I made the decision to lean into that, and talk about the incredible success stories of South Australia that they all should know, and how these are providing an exciting platform for the State to surge ahead through STEM in the years ahead.
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To my amazement (and with gratitude to the judges!) I won the 2018 Celestino Promoting Understanding of Science at the Australian Museum’s national Eureka Awards. This is basically the highest honour scientists who communicate that science to the public and that it was decided by an illustrious judging panel who I look up too is an incredible feeling of support and acknowledgement.
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A fun chat about all the things I enjoy in my work to the company who will (I hope!) take care of me in my retirement. Thanks for the cool photo too Unisuper! The amazing backdrop is the beautiful OzStar supercomputer, which I use in my research simulating galaxy formation
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It's nearly time for #NationalScienceWeek and we have updated the amazing (and free!) SciVR app to let you explore the universe in virtual reality on your smartphone! As before we are also giving you the chance to enter a ballot for free VR headsets that make the experience even better. Just head to www.scivr.com.au to register for that, download the app and book tickets for the live events (streaming online to over a dozen satellite events across Australia and the world!)
Huge thanks to our partners who make this possible; OzGrav, Swinburne, Fleet, State Library of Victoria and of course the Inspiring Australia grant for National Science Week
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Melting icesheets of Antarctica Western Shelf are allowing that ancient continent to rebound at the fastest rate in the world (41mm a year!) as measured by GPS stations. It was explained by ESA's glorious GOCE satellite, published in Science, the reason why - the mantle under Antartica is less viscous (or squishier) than normal, which could be a good thing for our planet. I took it upon myself to explain why this makes a difference on ABC Breakfast News TV with a bowl of honey and peanut butter... Rather proud of this explanation.
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I've kept the previous post up but sadly it's with regret that I have to pass on the message from Lateral Events that despite all our best efforts, What’s NEXT? has been cancelled in Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane. All ticket buyers will be provide with a full refund within the next seven days (i.e. mid-August latest) by Ticketmaster or Ticketek. Sorry all.
I cannot believe I get to write this but Nobel Prize-winning and Interstellar science consultant Prof Kip Thorne is touring Australia and I AM ON STAGE WITH HIM! Prof Kip Thorne is quite literally one of the smartest humans in the world, co-sharing the Nobel-prize for finding gravitational waves.
Tickets are out NOW. Get them at the LateralEvents link and I'll see you soon Australia... but more importantly you'll see the future with Prof Kip Thorne. And that is an unforgettable experience.
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Over half a century ago this nation became only the third in the world to build and launch a satellite from its own territory. Since that time aerospace ambitions in Australia have waxed and waned but with the announcement by the Turnbull Government of a National Space Agency, led by former CSIRO-head Dr Megan Clarke, it is clear that we are ready once again as a Nation to take our place in space.
The Victorian Minister for Industry and Employment Ben Carroll as well as Victoria's Lead Scientist Dr Amanda Caples believe that the natural home for this Agency is right here in Melbourne and were good enough to let me launch the bid alongside them, at Swinburne's Eric Ormond Baker Charitable Fund Remote Observing Facility in front of media from every TV, print and radio station. It was an unbelievable experience..!
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The latest series of the ABC Radio National podcast #CosmicVertigo is out and we're taking things to the EXTREME. I have to say I have the most fun with Dr Amanda Bauer recording these, they're made for your listening pleasure so I hope you enjoy it as much as I do... subscribe where you get your podcasts. Rate and review etc.
However this time you can also ask us questions online or by email (especially if you record them!) and we'll feature the best (or at least the ones I can answer) on the show. Enjoy!
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It's hard to put into words how significant Prof Stephen Hawking was for me on a personal level. His book "A Brief History of Time" was a defining moment as a young teenager to realise that you could have a career to explore the Universe; to spend a life studying the nature of expanding universes, blackholes and dark matter. More important than even his science he also showed the value of communicating that science.
His death hit me hard and it was a crazy day speaking on radio, TV and print to explain just why he was such an incredible and unique figure. I've shared a few of these TV interviews below. The first TV interview I ever gave was about him, and I was honoured that I could also speak at the end.
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