RSAA Astronomer wins respected international prize

The discovery that the expansion of the Universe is accelerating has won an astronomer at The Australian National University a prestigious and lucrative international prize, the Gruber Prize for Cosmology.

Professor Brian Schmidt of the Research School of Astronomy and Astrophysics (RSAA) and his team have been announced winners of the prize by the US-based Gruber Foundation, alongside fellow astronomer Saul Perlmutter from the University of California (Berkeley).

The researchers and their teams found that the expansion of the Universe was accelerating, contrary to what astronomers had previously believed. It was thought that as the Universe expanded, the gravity of matter would slow the cosmic expansion.  But, instead, measuring the distances to exploding stars more than 5 billion light years away, they found the opposite – the Universe was getting bigger, faster.

An Australian Research Council Federation Fellow, Professor Schmidt adds the Gruber Prize to his impressive international collection of awards, including the Harvard Bok Prize, the inaugural Malcolm McIntosh Award, and the Shaw Prize in Astronomy.

“The Gruber Prize is a huge honour – it’s as big an honour as there is in astronomy and it’s great to see that our team’s work has been recognised by such a prize,” Professor Schmidt said. “I’m particularly indebted to Adam Riess from John Hopkins University, who took a leading role in this research.”

Professor Schmidt heads the Southern Sky Survey project. This will capture the deepest, most sensitive map yet of the southern sky using the Skymapper telescope, which will be based at the University’s Siding Spring Observatory near Coonabarabran. The telescope was used to sight its first star last week in Arizona, where it is being assembled by Canberra-based company EOS. It will be shipped to Australia later this year.

“We’ll be able to see the Universe in six colours right back 12.8 billion years, about 850 million years after it formed,” Professor Schmidt said. “We are planning to find the oldest and brightest objects in the Universe, quasars that formed 12.8 billion years ago. We’ll be looking back to the time of the first stars and galaxies, about 850 million years after the Big Bang.”

The complete 250,000 gigabyte image of the southern sky, which will take five years to capture, will be stored at the ANU Supercomputer Facility, and will be accessible to astronomers around the world. The 268 megapixel camera for the telescope is under construction at Mt Stromlo, while the dome and telescope mount assembly are being built at Siding Spring. Skymapper is expected to be operational in Australia by early 2008.

Professor Schmidt grew up in Alaska, studied at the University of Arizona and completed his PhD at Harvard University. He was a postdoctoral fellow at the Harvard Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics before moving to Canberra and the RSAA in 1994. Professor Schmidt and his team will travel to Cambridge in September to accept the Gruber Prize from its co-sponsors, the International Astronomy Union.

More information: Simon Couper, ANU Media Office, 0416 249 241

More on the Gruber Prize: http://www.petergruberfoundation.org/

More on the Skymapper: http://www.mso.anu.edu.au/skymapper/