An international research team including The Australian National University (ANU) has used the Kepler space telescope in coordination with ground-based telescopes to witness the first moments of a star dying in unprecedented detail. The astronomers witnessed the star dying a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away, as part of a project that…
Tiny Diamond Invention Could Help Launch Rockets Into Space
Scientists at ANU have invented tiny diamond electronic parts that could outperform and be more durable than today’s devices in high-radiation environments such as rocket engines, helping to reach the next frontier in space. The team has developed a new type of ultra-thin transistor, which is a semiconductor widely used to amplify or switch electronic…
New Infrared Telescope First to Monitor Entire Northern Sky
A new infrared telescope designed and built by astronomers at ANU and the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) in the US will be the first of its kind to monitor the entire northern sky in search of new cosmic events. The agile robotic telescope, called Gattini-IR, will scan the northern sky once every night, from…
ANU Scientists Make New High-Tech Liquid Materials
Scientists at The Australian National University (ANU) have controlled wave-generated currents to make previously unimaginable liquid materials for new technological innovations, including techniques to manipulate micro-organisms. The new kind of dynamic material could be revolutionary, similar to other materials created in recent decades that have been used for invisibility cloaking, superlenses and high-efficiency antennae. Research…
ANU Invention to Inspire New Night-Vision Specs
Scientists at The Australian National University (ANU) have designed a nano crystal around 500 times smaller than a human hair that turns darkness into visible light and can be used to create light-weight night-vision glasses. Professor Dragomir Neshev from ANU said the new night-vision glasses could replace the cumbersome and bulky night-vision binoculars currently in…
New Telescope Chip Offers Clear View of Alien Planets
Scientists have developed a new optical chip for a telescope that enables astronomers to have a clear view of alien planets that may support life. Seeing a planet outside the solar system which is close to its host sun, similar to Earth, is very difficult with today’s standard astronomical instruments due to the brightness of…
New Material to Revolutionize Water Proofing
Scientists at The Australian National University (ANU) have developed a new spray-on material with a remarkable ability to repel water. The new protective coating could eventually be used to waterproof mobile phones, prevent ice from forming on aeroplanes or protect boat hulls from corroding. “The surface is a layer of nanoparticles, which water slides off…
Breakthrough in Powering Wireless Sensors
Researchers at The Australian National University (ANU) are a step closer to harvesting renewable or ambient energy from mobile phone base stations to power battery-operated wireless sensors used in industries including health and agriculture. Lead researcher Dr Salman Durrani from the ANU Research School of Engineering said current wireless sensors for buildings, biomedical applications or…
Clues to Ancient Giant Asteroid Found in Western Australia
Scientists have found evidence of a huge asteroid that struck the Earth early in its life with an impact larger than anything humans have experienced. Tiny glass beads called spherules, found in north-western Australia were formed from vaporised material from the asteroid impact, said Dr Andrew Glikson from The Australian National University (ANU). “The impact…
Artificial Intelligence Replaces Physicists
Supernovae Showered Earth with Radioactive Debris
An international team of scientists has found evidence of a series of massive supernova explosions near our solar system, which showered the Earth with radioactive debris. The scientists found radioactive iron-60 in sediment and crust samples taken from the Pacific, Atlantic and Indian Oceans. The iron-60 was concentrated in a period between 3.2 and 1.7…
Astronomers Glimpse Supernova Shockwave
Astronomers have captured the earliest minutes of two exploding stars and for the first time seen a shockwave generated by a star’s collapsing core. The international team found a shockwave only in the smaller supernova, a finding that will help them understand these complex explosions that create many of the elements that make up humans,…
The Aliens Are Silent Because They’re Dead
Life on other planets would likely be brief and become extinct very quickly, say astrobiologists from The Australian National University (ANU). In research aiming to understand how life might develop, the scientists realised new life would commonly die out due to runaway heating or cooling on their fledgling planets. “The universe is probably filled with…
Researchers Have The Chemistry To Make A Star
Chemists have created a star-shaped molecule previously thought to be too unstable to be made. The team created the five-pronged molecule [5]radialene, in work that could lead to more efficient ways to make medicinal agents, said lead researcher, Professor Michael Sherburn from The Australian National University (ANU). “This proof that we can make a compound…
Drones Used to Track Wildlife
Researchers at The Australian National University (ANU) and The University of Sydney have developed a world-first radio-tracking drone to locate radio-tagged wildlife. Lead researcher Dr. Debbie Saunders from the ANU Fenner School of Environment and Society said the drones have successfully detected tiny radio transmitters weighing as little as one gram. The system has been…
Making New Materials with Micro-Explosions
Scientists have made exotic new materials by creating laser-induced micro-explosions in silicon, the common computer chip material. The new technique could lead to the simple creation and manufacture of superconductors or high-efficiency solar cells and light sensors, said leader of the research, Professor Andrei Rode, from The Australian National University (ANU). “We’ve created two entirely…
Tracking Parasites with Satellites
Scientists are teaming up to use satellite data to target deadly parasites to help predict patterns of parasitic diseases such as malaria, worms and hydatids. Project leader Professor Archie Clements, from The Australian National University, said the research could help authorities in developing countries fight parasitic diseases. “Some diseases are highly sensitive to their environment,…
Spiral Laser Beam Creates Quantum Whirlpool
Physicists at ANU have engineered a spiral laser beam and used it to create a whirlpool of hybrid light-matter particles called polaritons. “Creating circulating currents of polaritons – vortices – and controlling them has been a long-standing challenge,” said leader of the team, theoretician Dr Elena Ostrovskaya, from the Research School of Physics and Engineering…
New Material Puts a Twist in Light
Scientists at The Australian National University (ANU) have uncovered the secret to twisting light at will. It is the latest step in the development of photonics, the faster, more compact and less carbon-hungry successor to electronics. A random find in the washing basket led the team to create the latest in a new breed of…