Understanding the Galaxy and its neighbours
Our location in the Milky Way provides us with a unique vantage point to study the structure, composition and kinematics of our home galaxy, the Andromeda galaxy and other galaxies in our Local Group.
Our researchers participate in a range of surveys, including:
- GALAH
- the VISTA Survey of the Magellanic Clouds
- the Legacy Survey of Space and Time
- 4MOST
- The Southern Stellar Stream Spectroscopic Survey (S⁵).
We make extensive use of telescopes at home and abroad, including the Very Large Telescope and the Vera Rubin Observatory.
Learn more about the projects we are undertaking, the researchers engaged in them, and who you can contact to get involved.
Stellar variability: Redefining the Milky Way’s fundamentals
We will exploit the most extensive and statistically complete catalogue of 572,338 periodic variable stars in the Milky Way to robustly quantify our galaxy’s 3D mass/stellar distribution.
We will conclusively determine the time evolution of the Milky Way’s spiral arms and of its warped stellar disk to distances two to three times further from the Galaxy’s centre than our Sun. Accurately knowing the Milky Way’s structure is fundamental, since it is the benchmark by which we measure external galaxies.
The research project will also set the standard for stellar structure studies and analyses of gravitational-wave source properties.
Supervisor: Richard de Grijs
Galactic archaeology
Galactic archaeology – the detailed study of stars in our galaxy and its nearest neighbours in order to uncover clues to their formation and evolution – is entering a new era with the availability of detailed elemental abundances and precision radial velocities for over a million stars in the Milky Way from the GALAH (GALactic Archaeology with HERMES) survey.
Combining GALAH with data from the ESA space mission, Gaia will open new frontiers in our understanding of the formation and evolution of the Galaxy.
In this project, you will work with members of the GALAH team and other international collaborators.
Supervisor: Dan Zucker
Satellites and stellar streams in the Local Group
Galaxies like our Milky Way form by accreting smaller systems, and this process of galaxy cannibalism continues to the present day. The dwarf satellites orbiting the Galaxy and M31 – its nearest large neighbour – are survivors, while the victims are stretched across the sky in stellar streams.
These satellites and streams, many of them revealed by wide-area astronomical surveys, probe the conditions of galaxy formation in the early universe and the behaviour of dark matter on the smallest scales.
In this research area you will have the opportunity to work with collaborators at other universities in Australia and overseas.
Supervisor: Dan Zucker