Embargo : 12 Noon Friday 21 March 1997
The Minister for Science and Technology, Mr Peter McGauran, today launches a world-first search for thousands of 'hidden' galaxies when he flicks 13 switches at CSIRO's Parkes radio telescope.
The switches will open the 13 'eyes' of a new instrument for the telescope, the 'Parkes multibeam receiver system', which will cut the time taken to scan our skies from decades to years.
"With this system we expect to find thousands of new galaxies whose light is too dim to see," said CSIRO's Dr Lister Staveley-Smith, leader of the multibeam project. "We are fishing for the sardines of space little and faint galaxies that other telescopes let slip through the net."
Many of these galaxies will be big clouds of gas that have almost 'failed' at making stars. Finding them is going to either shake up or confirm our current ideas of how galaxies form.
"We'll also find many galaxies hidden from us by the stars of the Milky Way, which obscures about a tenth of the sky," said Dr Staveley-Smith. "This will give us a truer picture of what's happening in the local Universe."
The hunt for the hidden galaxies is an international project led by CSIRO. Unlike most earlier surveys it is not biased towards big, bright galaxies and this makes it one of the most important surveys ever undertaken.
The multibeam instrument developed for the project is analogous to a wide-angle lens for a camera. Normally the telescope can see only a small piece of sky at a time. The multibeam instrument lets it see much more 13 times more.
Being able to see more at once slashes the time the telescope needs to find the hidden galaxies, from the better part of a century to only seven or eight years.
The instrument listens for the faint radio signals from cool hydrogen gas. Hydrogen gas is the raw material for making stars. It is found in most galaxies and in separate clouds in space.
Very faint galaxies that have few stars can still be detected from the whine of the hydrogen signal. And unlike light the radio waves are not blocked by the clouds of dust found in space.
The multibeam instrument was designed and built mainly by staff of CSIRO's Australia Telescope National Facility, which runs the Parkes telescope. The other institutions collaborating on the project are the University of Melbourne; Mount Stromlo and Siding Spring Observatories, ANU; the University of Sydney; the University of Western Sydney; the University of Cardiff, Wales; and the Jodrell Bank Observatory of the University of Manchester, UK.
At the Friday ceremony Mr McGauran will also unveil a plaque to the telescope's past.
To a brass fanfare Mr McGauran and Mr Barry Grear, Deputy President of the Institution of Engineers, Australia, will uncover a National Engineering Landmark plaque to commemorate the Parkes telescope as an engineering work of outstanding national importance.
Other works honoured in this way include the Sydney Harbour Bridge and the Snowy Mountains Hydro-electric Scheme.
The telescope started life in 1961. Expected to last only 15 years, it has been working for more than twice as long, thanks to its excellent design and construction.
It was designed by the British engineering firm Freeman Fox and Partners, which also designed the Sydney Harbour Bridge, and built by a German company, MAN (Maschinenfabrik Augsburg Nürnberg).
A representative from MAN will be at the ceremony on Friday to see the telescope get its gong.
For information, contact:
Dr Alan Wright CSIRO Australia Telescope National Facility, Parkes Radio Observatory (068) 61 1700 (B.H.)
Dr Marcus Price Director, CSIRO Parkes Radio Observatory Ph: (068) 61 1700 (B.H.)
Dr Rachel Webster, Physics Department, University of Melbourne Ph: (03) 9344 5450 (B.H.)
For the National Engineering Landmark Award: Mr Michael Clarke Institution of Engineers, Australia Ph: (02) 9745 3752