My student's first paper of her PhD was a stunning 3-part series on the growth of dark matter structures. In this paper Camila set up the analytic machinery that tied the mass accretion history of haloes to the underlying cosmology of the universe using linear structure formation theory. In particular she showed that the rapid exponential growth of haloes in the early universe slows to become a slower power law at late times thanks to Dark Energy. Reference: Correa, Wyithe, Schaye and Duffy 2015 MNRAS 450, 1514-1520
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NASA has an outrageously cool new spacecraft concept for landing ever larger cargo loads onto Mars. And yes it looks like a flying saucer.
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Channel 7's Weekend Sunrise had a feature on favourite dark matter detector in the Southern Hemisphere (it's the first and only one so that's an easy choice, as well as being a Co-Investigator which helps!)
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A chat on the couch about our Sun's Future and the protoplanet Ceres
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Modern life can seem overwhelmingly complex. By showing the astounding insights into the world we live in from asking three brief questions, I told the Sydney Opera House that sometimes the best way to understand something complex is to ask a simple question.
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With the excitement of our funding secured to build the world's first dark matter detector in the Southern Hemisphere in Stawell, Victoria we hosted VIPs and a film crew from 7's Sunrise Weekend. It was 30+ degrees and 100% humidity a km underground but that's where you need to go to search for dark matter!
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Unexpected (and slightly surprising) honour but I made Australia's "Men's Style Magazine" Men of Influence 2015 list, crazily this was alongside legend Hawthorn Hawks player Shaun Burgoyne. Still, I took it as a good sign that science was being considered as a key part of Australia.
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A Russian spacecraft is spinning out of control and I get to rant about the awesome physics of Interstellar too. Fun chat on the couch.
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Just an amazing experience heading up to the beautiful Pilbara region of West Australia to speak about aboriginal astronomy. I was part of an amazing lineup of speakers and events for the Karijini Experience, featuring everything from indigenous basket weaving techniques to Opera in the Gorge by the incomparable Deborah Cheetham
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The worlds most famous telescope just turned 25, I looked back on some of its iconic images and greatest discoveries.
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The tricky issue of science funding in Australia, which thankfully was soon rectified (for a year or two) after this broadcast. I also got to chat about Blackholes which is far more fun but without the funding we couldn't actually study these beasts so the two issues go hand in hand.
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I managed to corner the Prime Minister for a chat about my research during Science Meets Parliament when 200 scientists descended on Canberra to learn how to talk science to the funding bodies and politicians.
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Astoundingly discovery that the moon of Jupiter known as Ganymede has more water below the surface than all of our oceans combined. Also a quick chat about science funding.
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The Sun (like most stars) didn't form alone but came with 10s - 100s of siblings are born together. Thanks to new telescopes we can track down these long-lost sibling stars and see if they too have life.
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An unusual chat setting the non-science world to rights about House of Cards (piracy) and of course aliens.
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Definitely knowing that there are aliens out there requires us to see their signals, either radio waves from TVs say or twinkling lasers from their interplanetary communications. We can even think bigger and look for Dyson Spheres glowing red hot.
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NASA launched a new spacecraft DSCOVR to monitor the Sun and warn us of impending, potentially highly damaging, solar outbursts known as Coronal Mass Ejections.
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The Beagle 2 lander remains have been discovered on Mars. I remember this launch and potential landing well, the silence from the lander was crushing. If only Colin Pillinger had lived to see its successful landing.
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My look at the awesome year that's coming ahead in space exploration for 2015. There's new things from Rosetta around Comet 67P, SpaceX landing a reusable rocket and solar storms
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My round up of the year that was in space, from methane on Mars, landing on comets, hundreds of alien worlds and more. It was a massive year in space!
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