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Wednesday 6 October 2004

ANU astronomer tops smart science list

ANU astronomer Professor Brian Schmidt has topped a prestigious list of Australia's top scientists for his research into the expansion of the universe.

He was number one of the nation's top ten scientists according to an expert panel brought together by The Bulletin magazine for its 2004 Smart 100 issue. (Photo courtesy of The Bulletin)

Professor Schmidt led an international project called the High-Z SN Search that found the expansion of the universe was speeding up, not slowing down (the commonly held view). The project involved studying a class of exploding stars called Type1a supernovae.

“Because the exploding star is so far away it offers the first tantalising observational evidence that gravity was once slowing down the universe's expansion, but now has been overcome by a repulsive form of matter or ‘Dark Energy’,” according to Professor Schmidt.

Before the research led by Professor Schmidt, it had been assumed the universe was dominated by gravitating matter. But the High-Z SN Search indicated that only a quarter of the universe gravitates, with the other three-quarters made up of the repulsive anti-gravity.
 
According to The Bulletin: “[Professor Schmidt] led and international astronomical survey which confirmed that a mysterious ‘anti-gravity’ [first proposed by Albert Einstein] force permeates the universe … and he predicts the universe will go on expanding forever”.

Professor Schmidt completed his PhD in astronomy at Harvard University in 1993 and in 1995 took up a postdoctoral fellowship at the Research School of Astronomy and Astrophysics (RSAA), based at Mt Stromlo Observatory (MSO). He is currently an Australian Research Council Professorial Fellow at Mt Stromlo Observatory.

His primary research interest is in exploding stars known as supernovae, integral to his research into the expansion of the universe, but also in the gamma ray bursts, dark matter and distant asteroids.

Most recently at ANU, Professor Schmidt has led the team designing the new hi-tech SkyMapper telescope (being built at Siding Spring Observatory (SSO)) and will lead the Southern Sky Survey — the first complete map of the Southern sky.

The fully automated $11 million telescope will map the sky faster than any other telescope in the world, implementing a unique design devised jointly by the research team at the University's Mt Stromlo Observatory and Queanbeyan company, Electro Optic Systems Pty Ltd.

“Every minute it operates, the SkyMapper will be able to image a patch of sky five square degrees in area — 25 times the size of the full moon — at a depth 1 million times fainter than the human eye can attain,” Professor Schmidt said.

“The survey will be used by astronomers across Australia and around the world in a wide range of astronomy projects including identifying the most distant objects known in the universe — quasars, spotting nearby asteroids and pinpointing the first stars to have formed in our Galaxy.”

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