Dr Rebecca Davies from Swinburne University is one of six winners at the organisation’s Annual Scientific Meeting in Adelaide this week, the country’s largest gathering of astronomers
Her research, which won the Louise Webster Prize, focused on galactic winds in massive galaxies that existed around 10 billion years ago.
It found that gas outflows in these galaxies expelled material up to 100 times faster than it was converted into stars, suggesting these winds were likely responsible for halting star formation.
The discovery challenges previous assumptions that galactic outflows were too weak to have this effect.
Davies’ analysis, which focused on the neutral phase of these winds, used data from 60 galaxies captured by the James Webb Space Telescope. She is now leading a new observational program to study further how these outflows deplete cold gas reserves needed for star formation.
The Annual Scientific Meeting also recognised five other researchers working across a range of fields in astronomy.
Professor Naomi McClure-Griffiths of the Australian National University was awarded the Ellery Lectureship for her work on the structure and evolution of the Milky Way and nearby galaxies. Her research has included the discovery of a new spiral arm, the detection of neutral gas outflows from the galactic centre, and the study of magnetic fields in matter flow within the galaxy. She is also a co-lead on major surveys using the Australian Square Kilometre Array Pathfinder.
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Associate Professor Claudia Lagos from the International Centre for Radio Astronomy Research at the University of Western Australia won the Anne Green Prize for her contributions to modelling galaxy formation. She developed the SHARK simulation tool, which has provided insights into the formation of massive and dusty galaxies in the early universe.
Dr Matthew Miles, formerly of Swinburne University and now at Vanderbilt University in the US, received the Charlene Heisler Prize for his PhD thesis on using pulsar timing to detect gravitational waves. His research enhanced the precision of pulsar timing measurements and released the first dataset from the MeerKAT Pulsar Timing Array.
Dr Joshua Preston Pritchard from CSIRO received the Emerging Leaders in Astronomy Software Development Prize for creating DStools, a software package for analysing radio telescope data. The tool has already supported multiple studies of transient cosmic radio signals and has been featured in leading scientific journals.
Li Yusen, an honours student at the Australian National University, won the Bok Prize for his research on the Hercules stream, a group of stars moving differently from most in the Milky Way. He confirmed that these stars likely originated in the central bar of the galaxy and are now travelling outward, passing through the solar neighbourhood.
Astronomical Society of Australia’s (ASA) president, Professor Stas Shabala, said the recent prize winners were investigating how galaxies form and evolve, and developing new tools to explore the cosmos.
“They are working with some of the most remarkable instruments created by humanity, they’re demonstrating the strength of Australian astronomy on the world stage,” he said.
The ASA’s Annual Scientific Meeting included presentations from researchers, workshops and opportunities to share developments in both observational and theoretical astrophysics.
The event rotates between host institutions across the country.
Adam Thorn
Adam is a journalist who has worked for more than 40 prestigious media brands in the UK and Australia. Since 2005, his varied career has included stints as a reporter, copy editor, feature writer and editor for publications as diverse as Fleet Street newspaper The Sunday Times, fashion bible Jones, media and marketing website Mumbrella as well as lifestyle magazines such as GQ, Woman’s Weekly, Men’s Health and Loaded. He joined Momentum Media in early 2020 and currently writes for Australian Aviation and World of Aviation.
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