“The Australian Academy of Science today recognises 22 scientists from across the country in its annual honorific awards, which celebrate the achievements of leading minds and emerging scientific stars working to solve humanity’s greatest challenges.”
I have been awarded the Nancy Milis Medal for Women in Science; check out the video commemorating my award here: https://vimeo.com/1062227138
“Astronomers are uncovering a new class of enigmatic objects in radio astronomy called Long-Period Transients (LPTs), which challenge traditional models of pulsars, neutron stars and white dwarfs. Recent discoveries of two LPTs, one with an optical counterpart and another with coincident X-ray emissions, highlight how multi-wavelength observations are going to play a role in unlocking the secrets of these mysterious sources…”
“Astronomers may be closing in on the source of enigmatic slow radio pulses—minuteslong signals coming tens of minutes apart from a handful of locations in the Milky Way. Several recent papers on these long-period radio transients (LPTs) point to an unusual source…”
“Slowly repeating bursts of intense radio waves from space have puzzled astronomers since they were discovered in 2022.
In new research, we have for the first time tracked one of these pulsating signals back to its source: a common kind of lightweight star called a red dwarf, likely in a binary orbit with a white dwarf, the core of another star that exploded long ago.”
“"In that [image] you're seeing hundreds of thousands of radio galaxies, supermassive black holes, millions of light years away," Dr Natasha Hurley-Walker told 7.30.
The renowned astronomer made the discovery in 2016 using the Murchison Widefield Array (MWA), a nearby radio telescope with a web of 4,000 spider-like antennas. …
In this three-part lecture podcast, Producer Sarah Tout interviews three speakers about the unique role archives and Western Australia have played in discovering and exploring the universe.
Dr Natasha Hurley-Walker is an award-winning local radio astronomer from the from the International Centre of Radio Astronomy Research. Dr Hurley-Walker discusses her work, the important role of archival data in discovery, and the way the contributions of women were overlooked in the past – a challenge that continues today.
Mr Paul Jones discusses the history of Perth Observatory and Ms Julia Lawrinson shares her work of the picture book ‘City of Light’.
You can listen to the podcast here: http://bit.ly/48aMj8x.
The Geoffrey Bolton lecture honours Geoffrey Bolton AO, Australian historian, academic and writer, and is an annual celebration of discovery and insight, informed and enriched by archives.
Astronaut Tim Peake takes us on an incredible journey through our Universe.
I chat with Tim in Episode 2, discussing what stars are made of, how long they live and what happens when they die.
“We used the Murchison Widefield Array radio telescope in Western Australia to scan our Milky Way galaxy every three nights for several months. Almost as soon as we started looking, we found a new source, in a different part of the sky, this time repeating every 22 minutes… Our object looked a lot like a pulsar, but spinning 1,000 times slower…”
From ABC Radio Darwin: “Don't just look ahead. Look up! From a strawberry moon to celestial beehives. What's happening up there in space will make an impact down here on Earth. Dr Natasha Hurley-Walker is from the Curtin University Node of the International Centre for Radio Astronomy Research…”
I’m in the runnings for the Women in Technology Western Australia People’s Choice Award for 2022! You can vote for me or any five briliant women in tech by clicking through the title link.
Talented Tasmanian designer Becski and I have co-created a T-shirt inspired by my work in radio astronomy — and it is Australia’s Favourite Science T-shirt for 2022! You can buy a shirt here: https://www.shirtyscience.com/shirts/galactic-blooms
Or, find out how we created the shirt via this delightful podcast from Avid Research!
Science fiction invites us to imagine the universe as it could be, and to find our place in it. "To boldly go," as one show put it.
In a 1968 episode of Star Trek, the writers dreamt up a new engine called an ion engine, a fanciful form of propulsion.
Some years later NASA, inspired by Star Trek, decided to prototype the engine and it worked. It's often quoted as an example of science fiction inspiring science.
These days, Dr Brad Tucker and Dr Natasha Hurley-Walker are highly regarded scientists: experts in their fields of astrophysics and radio-astronomy.
But once upon a time, they were young people, wondering what their future would hold.
In the Drawing Room, they share their inspirations and the way it impacts their work today.
Dr Natasha Hurley-Walker and colleagues have been recognised in this year’s Astronomical Society of Australia awards. The ASA will honour the five at its Annual Scientific Meeting in Hobart 27 June – 1 July.
“Australian astronomers are among the best in the world, and the breadth of these prestigious awards shows why we lead the world in so many areas. It is a pleasure to recognise these examples of individual brilliance, as well as teamwork, and technical innovation,” says ASA President Professor John Lattanzio.
I’m interviewed by Smart Enough to Know Better, “a podcast of Science, Comedy and Ignorance.” I talk to Greg Wah about “a mysterious astronomical entity”… and we do excellent audio impressions of objects in space!
““I think it’s real,” Curtin University student Tyrone O’Doherty told his supervisors when he spotted the anomaly.
And it was real, as it turns out. The object beaming out from space was also “spooky”, and “in our galactic back yard”.
An Australian team studying the universe’s radio waves has discovered a new type of beam that comes and goes, one of the brightest radio sources in the sky. The details of the discovery were published in Nature on Thursday…”
“In early 2018, something in our cosmic backyard blasted out powerful jets of energy for up to a minute about once every 18 minutes for three months. Then it stopped.
Despite being one of the brightest radio objects in the sky, it went unnoticed until a team of astronomers looked back at data collected by the Murchison Widefield Array (MWA) telescope in outback Western Australia.
"When it is on, it is brighter than the next brightest thing in the sky in that area, which is a supermassive black hole [millions of light-years away]," said Natasha Hurley-Walker, an astrophysicist at Curtin University and the International Centre for Radio Astronomy Research…”
“Australian astronomers have chanced across an object hidden in our galaxy that should not exist.
Three times an hour, like clockwork, the object releases a massive burst of radio waves for a minute, briefly becoming the brightest object in the sky at those invisible frequencies…”
““Holy sharks, Batman, it’s periodic!”
I exclaimed on Slack.
It was the first lockdown of 2021 in Perth, and we were all working from home. And when astronomers look for something to distract themselves from looming existential dread, there’s nothing better than a new cosmic mystery...”
“A curious radio signal in space was spotted pulsing every 18 minutes and 18 seconds over a period of three months before it disappeared from view, revealing “an unusual periodicity” that has not been observed previously, reports a new study.
Though the source of the signals is still unknown, the scientists who discovered it think those clockwork pulses may be the rotational signature of an exotic dead star, perhaps a white dwarf or a highly magnetized “magnetar,” located some 4,000 light years away. But no matter what it is, the discovery will reveal “further insight into the evolutionary extremes surrounding the life and death of massive stars,” according to the study, which was published on Wednesday in Nature…”
“Astronomers have discovered a mysterious object emitting a radio wave beam that pulsed every 20 minutes.
The team behind the discovery believe the object could be a new class of slowly rotating neutron star with an ultra-powerful magnetic field. The repeating signals were detected during the first three months of 2018, but then disappeared, suggesting they were linked to a dramatic, one-off event, such as a starquake…”