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Fun way to start a week chatting to ABC Breakfast News about NASA's WFIRST mission, a former spy satellite now repurposed as a new wide-eye Hubble space telescope! I also explained how we measured the atmosphere of a (roasting hot) super Earth for the first time (it's cyanide, don't move there) and how the Sun destroyed potentially dangerous asteroids by baking them into oblivion..!
Read MoreThe discovery of gravitational waves is legitimately one that will be remembered for generations. We are now able to see into the universe with an entirely new sense beyond our conventional telescopes, as far removed from sight as sound. A huge day and I ended up chatting to The Project, Channel 7’s Weekend Sunrise as well as mamamia, VICE, Cosmos and theconversation but seriously I could keep on for weeks, this is the biggest discovery that I’ve witnessed in my scientific career.
Read MoreThe reanalysis of Apollo era moon rocks show they are identical to those of Earth supporting the theory that an early Earth was slammed in a head-on collision by a Mars-sized world we call Theia. The fragments from this would one day become the Moon!
I also mentioned a newly discovered super-cold ‘space pancake’ and the boomerang gas cloud.
Read MoreCaltech researchers led by Prof Mike Brown who formerly demoted Pluto have published tentative results of a ninth planet in our Solar System, and at ten times the mass of Earth it’s in no danger of not qualifying for planet status if real. Fainter than a lightbulb on the Moon and moving each second on the sky about a human hair’s width held at 100km it will be challenging to find against the 100 million stars of the Milk Way behind it’s approximate area.
Read MoreI got a little carried away with the ridiculous scale of the latest explosion in space, outshine the entire Milky Way twenty times over. We have no idea how to produce this level of explosion. Then there was brief chat about SpaceX and its unfortunate crash on a sea barge then a final rant about the wonders of Pluto!
Read MoreThe Project invited me on the show to chat about an astounding discovery... A new tiny faint point of light appeared in the sky, 10000 times faint than could be seen by the naked eye, but when we realised it was 3.8 BILLION lightyears away it was clear that it must be astoundingly bright to even reach this faint level. This was the brightest supernovae ever recorded - ASAS-SN-15lh
Read MoreOne of my great passions in life is reading, and I jumped at the chance to wax lyrical about my top books I’d read this past year on Radio National. Sarah Dingle was a champ, allowing me to get a bit carried away with some of the themes of the books...
Read More2016 is shaping up to be an incredible year for space exploration with ESA’s ExoMars spacecraft heading to Mars, NASA’s Juno mission reaching Jupiter on 4th July and an entirely new type of telescope called LIGO looking out into the universe for Einstein’s final prediction Gravitational Waves..!
Read MoreAfter an outstanding year of science and space events I grabbled with the thorny issue of summarising my highlights to a top 10 for theconversation (I could have easily listed another ten!) Unsurprisingly the main story of the year was Pluto.
Read MoreI chatted to Scott and Kumi about the upcoming Geminids meteor shower, why it’s so good this year as well as where and when would be best to watch. If you want more details I wrote about this online with approximate times for Australia.
Read MoreDRAGONS is out! Our first six collaboration papers are on the arXiv and submitted to the journals. Can’t describe what a relief this is for myself and the team..! Led by U.Melb’s Professor Stuart Wyithe it's been a few hard years of science, simulating the first galaxies after the Big Bang and trying to figure out what these look like from telescopes on Earth, 13 billion years later (and 40 billion light years distant) but finally the results are in and they’re amazing.
Read MoreMy thoughts on the newly announced Innovation Statement from new PM Turnbull’s government. There’s a lot to like in this package of over 20 policies/initiatives and I wrote a piece for ABC The Drum focussing on those that will impact research most directly.
Read MoreIt was a busy day preparing for the Government’s new innovation policy, I chatted about what I hope to see and also what I thought would happen. Then I was able to sneak in some tips on viewing the Geminids meteor shower next week as well as some astonishing new images from the recent New Horizons flyby of Pluto.
Read MoreDeeply honoured to be featured alongside everyday Australian legends as Commbank’s Australian of the Day campaign. Fun chatting to them about my work on Dark Matter as well as helping inspire and educate Australians about the awesomeness of science.
Read MoreI had a horribly awkward fanboy moment when I got to meet the legend himself Buzz Aldrin! There are few people in this world I consider a living legend but Buzz is one, so getting to shake his hand and then hear about his experiences on the Moon and his hoped for plans about getting to Mars was incredible.
Read MoreWednesday sees the 100th year anniversary since Einstein presented his “Field Equations of Gravity” to the Prussian Academy of Sciences which we know better today as General Relativity. This changed our understanding of the world, from Blackholes to the Big Bang and even GPS satnav. In honour of this momentous occasion I brought in a prop that really didn’t go very well...
Read MoreI wrote an article for Cosmos Magazine explaining how NASA’s MAVEN spacecraft detected streams of Martian air blasted away by the Solar Wind. This tiny trickle (100g / s) was seen to increase 10-15x during even a moderate Solar Storm (or Coronal Mass Ejection). As the Sun was more active when younger these slow and fast processes of stripping air from Mars could explain how the red planet was transformed from a water rich world 4bn years go into the barren desert it is today.
Read MoreA chat on the couch about how Mars was transformed from a world of oceans to the desert we know today (it was all the Sun’s fault!) I also spoke about a NASA archaeological dig into the centre of our galaxy looking for ancient stars and finished with the news that Google Lunar Xprize's private lunar space race is ON!
Read MoreI explained to Channel 10 that NASA’s MAVEN spacecraft has seen the solar wind from the Sun strip Mars of 100g of atmosphere a second (that’s a quarter pounder burger of air). During solar storms this can increase 10x-15x as much meaning that the younger and more active Sun was easily capable of stripping Mars of it’s atmosphere. This turned Mars from a world of oceans 4bn years ago into the desolate desert it is today. It also highlights the importance of our magnetic field on Earth which protects us from a similar fate!
Read MoreI spoke to Sunrise on 7 about the asteroid TB145 akak “Spooky” or the “Great Pumpkin”. An asteroid flying by Oct 31st 17.05 UTC (Halloween!) which is 4am Nov 1st for Melbourne. Awesomely it looks like a skull. It will pass by over a third further out than the Moon, although a close shave by astronomy standards there's seriously no threat AT ALL so don't panic, just enjoy the show.
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