Moree is a country town in New South Wales and is just over 120 kilometres from the Queensland border. It has a rich history dating back to 1862 and was home to the country’s second Earth Station, a relay point linking satellites and telecommunications equipment across the Pacific Ocean. The Earth station also played a... Continue Reading →
2M1207b: The First Exoplanet Ever Photographed
The first exoplanet was discovered in 1992 and it opened up a new era of planetary science. Eight years later, a group of astronomers at the European Southern Observatory (ESO) took a series of infrared images of a brown dwarf. What they didn’t know at the time was they had also taken the first ever... Continue Reading →
Charon: Pluto’s Moon at the Edge of the Solar System
Before being reclassified as a dwarf planet in 2006, Pluto was considered the ninth and final planet of the Solar System. It was discovered in 1930 but it wasn’t until 1978 when astronomers discovered a second object. Named Charon, the moon was nearly half the diameter of Pluto and defied all expectations. While working at... Continue Reading →
The Hubble Space Telescope Turns 30
Humans have been fascinated by the stars for thousands of years and continue to be so thanks to a burning curiosity that only grows with each new discovery. Since its launch, the Hubble Space Telescope has shaped our understanding of space in ways astronomers never thought possible. It has confirmed the age of the universe,... Continue Reading →
The Parkes Radio Observatory
People have been looking up at the night sky for thousands of years but radio astronomy was new in the 1950s. One of the first fully functioning radio telescopes in the Southern Hemisphere was the one at Parkes Observatory. It is located 20 kilometres (12.4 miles) north of the town of the same name and... Continue Reading →