Take a path to the stars

By Denise Cullen

A career in astronomy involves a lot less time spent stargazing than you might imagine.

Exploding the myth that astronomers spend their nights and days hunched over telescopes contemplating the heavens, Andrew Hopkins, head of Anglo-Australian Telescope Science at the Australian Astronomical Observatory, says day-to-day tasks typically involve “a lot of computer work”.

“[We] may only need to spend a couple of days or weeks a year actually observing with a telescope to collect data, which we then process and analyse,” Hopkins says.

Sometimes, instead of visiting particular telescopes in person, astronomers may instead prepare proposals that are conducted by staff of that observatory.

Or they may just be present in the control room while a dedicated operator controls the telescope.

But the goal remains to fathom how the universe works.

Some astronomers, such as Hopkins, who grew up in country NSW and sponsors an annual award for excellence in science at Wingham High School on the NSW north coast, which he attended, focus their research efforts on the evolution of galaxies.

Others probe other galaxies and how they change, or explore the nature of dark matter and dark energy.

“Unlike most scientists, who can develop experiments in the laboratory, astronomers are limited to simply observing the universe, because stars don’t fit in the lab,” Hopkins says.

“The experiments we do are clever sets of observations of different kinds of stars and galaxies, with appropriately selected telescope facilities, aimed at finding answers to particular questions.”

They use a variety of telescopes in their work.

“This is a consequence of the different technologies needed in order to observe the universe at different wavelengths of light, from the lowest energy light at radio wavelengths, through infrared, optical light in the middle, and ultraviolet, up to the highest energy light at X-ray and gamma-ray wavelengths,” Hopkins says.

Other activities include writing professional papers, collaborating with other astronomers and delivering presentations to professional colleagues and to the general public, which makes it a very sociable profession.

“Increasingly large collaborations are an important requirement for making progress in astronomy, so much of the analysis will be done in conjunction with colleagues,” he says.

“[These colleagues] may be distributed around the world, [for] while collaborations are getting larger, there is still only a relatively small number of astronomers worldwide.”

According to the Astronomical Society of Australia, astronomers come from many backgrounds but a common thread links them all: the ability to master a particular facet of astronomical research and a curiosity that allows them to spend long hours in pursuit of something new about the universe.

But the field is highly competitive, the society notes, “even for students who graduate with excellent PhDs”.

Indeed, a PhD is considered the minimum requirement, but the good news for aspiring astronomers is that many institutions offer summer work programs to students who have completed three (or sometimes two) years of their undergraduate degree in a relevant area such as physics.

“For someone wondering if they’d like a job in astronomy, this is a good way to learn about how the field works,” Hopkins notes.

Most positions for the coming summer have closed, however.

The availability of positions in professional astronomy is strongly dependent on funding cycles and the success of individuals or groups in obtaining competitive funding awards.

“Astronomy in Australia is seeing many opportunities available at present, following a decade or so of very limited opportunities,” Hopkins says.

This is in sharp contrast to the situation in Britain, which is experiencing the opposite, he adds.

Because of this, the Australian Astronomical Observatory is expecting a large number of applications from international candidates for the positions it is advertising.

“The specific positions that we have advertised are focused on research associated with the evolution of galaxies, such as our own Milky Way galaxy,” Hopkins says.

“In particular, we are after people who will contribute to research on the GAMA survey — GAMA standing for galaxy and mass assembly, which is a project looking to measure up to 400,000 galaxies over the past five billion years of the history of the universe.

“The aim of the GAMA project is to explore properties of dark matter and dark energy, by measuring how galaxies clump together into groups and clusters of galaxies, but also to explore how different types of galaxies have formed their stars out of their gas reservoirs and how this has changed over cosmic history.”

Article from The Australian, October 9, 2010.