Imaging the youngest planets. Over 5000 exoplanets have been discovered, demonstrating that planet formation is a robust and widespread process. But we do not know how these planets, including those in our solar system, formed. Our group at Monash pioneered a new technique for detecting "baby" planets --- observed still embedded in the disc of gas and dust from which they are born. The project aims to characterise the youngest detected exoplanets with the world's largest telescopes, including ....Imaging the youngest planets. Over 5000 exoplanets have been discovered, demonstrating that planet formation is a robust and widespread process. But we do not know how these planets, including those in our solar system, formed. Our group at Monash pioneered a new technique for detecting "baby" planets --- observed still embedded in the disc of gas and dust from which they are born. The project aims to characterise the youngest detected exoplanets with the world's largest telescopes, including time already awarded on the James Webb Space Telescope. We will image these planets, and model their birth in 3D. The project will develop state of the art computer algorithms for simulating fluid flow and data analysis technics that can be applied to problems here on Earth. Read moreRead less
Discovery Early Career Researcher Award - Grant ID: DE220101325
Funder
Australian Research Council
Funding Amount
$364,092.00
Summary
Minding the gaps in our maps of the stars. This Project seeks to understand the formation of our Galaxy by studying the brightest billion stars. This Project will develop novel methods to account for the unseen hundreds of billions of fainter stars, and for the complexities of space telescopes. Anticipated outcomes include fundamental tests of stellar evolution theory; the discovery of stars flung from our Galaxy by massive black holes; a timeline of our Galaxy’s evolution; and a 3D map of its s ....Minding the gaps in our maps of the stars. This Project seeks to understand the formation of our Galaxy by studying the brightest billion stars. This Project will develop novel methods to account for the unseen hundreds of billions of fainter stars, and for the complexities of space telescopes. Anticipated outcomes include fundamental tests of stellar evolution theory; the discovery of stars flung from our Galaxy by massive black holes; a timeline of our Galaxy’s evolution; and a 3D map of its stars and interstellar dust. This is expected to drive a generational advancement in astrophysics, provide social benefits by engaging the public with discovering the cosmos, and generate economic benefits from a general method for hypothesis testing with biased and incomplete datasets.Read moreRead less
Discovery Early Career Researcher Award - Grant ID: DE150101323
Funder
Australian Research Council
Funding Amount
$328,000.00
Summary
Disentangling the Complexity of Old Stellar Populations. Galaxy formation is an outstanding problem in modern astronomy. Star clusters are the basic building blocks in the Universe. The oldest stellar aggregates are the globular clusters whose stars show patterns in composition that are not found elsewhere. This project aims to bring new understanding to globular clusters by studying the composition of their constituent stars in many different environments. Patterns in this composition reveal th ....Disentangling the Complexity of Old Stellar Populations. Galaxy formation is an outstanding problem in modern astronomy. Star clusters are the basic building blocks in the Universe. The oldest stellar aggregates are the globular clusters whose stars show patterns in composition that are not found elsewhere. This project aims to bring new understanding to globular clusters by studying the composition of their constituent stars in many different environments. Patterns in this composition reveal the history of star formation and the formation of the globular clusters themselves. These are in turn involved in the formation of galaxies. The project aims to use these stars to probe the formation of globular clusters and the stellar components of the Galaxy, and hence link these old stars to larger cosmological questions.Read moreRead less
Binary stars and Planets. Aims: This project aims to study stellar and planetary systems in which the objects' spins are tilted with respect to their orbits, e.g., responsible for the seasons on earth. Significance: Observations show that many exoplanets and binary star systems are usually tilted, affecting their evolution.
Expected outcomes include understanding the final spin states of white dwarfs, neutron stars, and black holes, and misaligned hot Jupiter systems.
Benefits: This project sh ....Binary stars and Planets. Aims: This project aims to study stellar and planetary systems in which the objects' spins are tilted with respect to their orbits, e.g., responsible for the seasons on earth. Significance: Observations show that many exoplanets and binary star systems are usually tilted, affecting their evolution.
Expected outcomes include understanding the final spin states of white dwarfs, neutron stars, and black holes, and misaligned hot Jupiter systems.
Benefits: This project should bring together expertise in stellar modelling, the theory of tidal interactions, and binary dynamics to make first inroads on this problem by allowing for both differential rotation and varying spin direction inside the star, advancing our knowledge on stars and planets.Read moreRead less
Wobbling stars reveal their hidden companions. This project aims to measure the wobble in the position of distant stars that is caused by massive objects, using telescopes in space. This project expects to generate new knowledge on how binary stars, exoplanets, and stellar mass black holes are formed. Expected outcomes of this project include tight constraints on binary star models, new discoveries of neutron stars and black holes that are a few times more massive than the Sun, and samples of st ....Wobbling stars reveal their hidden companions. This project aims to measure the wobble in the position of distant stars that is caused by massive objects, using telescopes in space. This project expects to generate new knowledge on how binary stars, exoplanets, and stellar mass black holes are formed. Expected outcomes of this project include tight constraints on binary star models, new discoveries of neutron stars and black holes that are a few times more massive than the Sun, and samples of stars that do, and do not, host exoplanets. This should provide significant benefits including a catalogue of companion properties for billions of sources, new understanding of how stars die, as well as the first control sample of stars without planets to help understand how and why planets form.Read moreRead less
Modelling star formation and feedback in the interstellar medium. Star formation is such a highly complex process in which turbulence, gravity, chemical evolution, magnetic fields and stellar feedback are coupled together that numerical models are needed to study star formation in detail. This project aims to combine them in a self-consistent model, enabling the most detailed comparison with observations possible to date.
A New Way to Calculate Mixing and Burning in Stars. This project aims to develop a new method for calculating mixing and burning in stars, by combining the results of supercomputer calculations with a novel 2-stream mixing idea. It will develop new techniques suitable for studying the long-term evolution of hot gases that are both mixing and burning at the same time. Expected outcomes will be advances in computational gas dynamics, a robust new model for mixing in stars, and an improved underst ....A New Way to Calculate Mixing and Burning in Stars. This project aims to develop a new method for calculating mixing and burning in stars, by combining the results of supercomputer calculations with a novel 2-stream mixing idea. It will develop new techniques suitable for studying the long-term evolution of hot gases that are both mixing and burning at the same time. Expected outcomes will be advances in computational gas dynamics, a robust new model for mixing in stars, and an improved understanding of the production of the heaviest elements. Benefits will include advances in computational gas dynamics, astronomical modelling, and strengthened research connections with astronomers and computational scientists in the UK and Sweden.Read moreRead less