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Monash Astrophysics @monashastro.bsky.social · 22d

A huge congratulations to Dr Madeline Howell and Dr Thomas Maunder on their PhD graduations! 💫 Maddy has gone onto a postdoc job in the US and Tom is doing data science in industry. We couldn’t be prouder!!

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Monash Astrophysics @monashastro.bsky.social · Aug 29

Front page news! 📰 Monash PhD researcher Christian Adamcwicz leads new LVK results revealing the mysterious 40 M☉ gap in black hole populations. Exciting clues about how the universe’s heaviest stars live and die! #BlackHoles #LVK #Astrophysics www.theaustralian.com.au/science/grav...

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Monash Astrophysics @monashastro.bsky.social · Aug 4

Monash Astrophysics was well represented at GR24 & Amaldi16 in Glasgow! 🖤🌌
Our PhD students & postdocs presented cutting-edge research on gravitational waves, black holes, and fundamental physics at this major international conference. #GR24 #Amaldi16 #GravitationalWaves

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Monash Astrophysics @monashastro.bsky.social · Jul 8

Great to see so many Monash researchers sharing their work at the ASA in Adelaide this week. Great science and great conversations all around.

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Monash Astrophysics @monashastro.bsky.social · Apr 16

Monash researchers have simulated one of the lightest neutron stars ever—just 1.192 solar masses—bringing us closer to solving a key astrophysics puzzle. A leap forward for supernova science. 🌟🧠 #NeutronStars #Astrophysics #Supernova #MonashScience

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Monash Astrophysics @monashastro.bsky.social · Apr 2

Today our first year astros did some solar observing 🌞 Lucky for them the Sun is near the peak of its 11 year cycle so we were able to spot some beautiful Sunspots. 🔭😮 Swipe to see them for yourself! ➡ #sun #telescope #space #monash

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Monash Astrophysics @monashastro.bsky.social · Dec 11

Monash University takes all three prizes at the OzGrav bingo ice breaker activity at the 2024 retreat! @ozgrav.bsky.social

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Reposted by Monash Astrophysics

Rowina Nathan ✨ @pinkastrophysicist.bsky.social · Dec 8

Coverage in The SMH!
www.smh.com.au/national/a-s...

‘A ship on the ocean of reality’: New maps show universe is even weirder than we thought

A decade ago, astronomers observed gravitational waves for the first time. What has emerged since is a picture of the universe as a vast ocean – dark and powerful.

www.smh.com.au

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Monash Astrophysics @monashastro.bsky.social · Dec 3

Exciting news! Monash University’s, Rowina Nathan, has authored a groundbreaking study using the powerful MeerKAT telescope to create the most detailed map of the gravitational wave background to date: shorturl.at/KRXKj

Check out an article on Rowina’s work: shorturl.at/oS3G1

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Reposted by Monash Astrophysics

Michael Brown @mjibrown.bsky.social · Nov 24

Optimist: The cup is half full

Pessimist: The cup is half empty

Astronomer: There are Type I cups and Type II cups but clearly this is a rare transitional Type 1.5 cup.

Emily Hunt @emily.space · Nov 24

Optimist: The cup is half full

Pessimist: The cup is half empty

Astronomer: In this work, we propose HoFITCh (HOw Full Is That Cup), a Bayesian model for sampling the fullness of cups from imaging data and prior beliefs.

We sample the posterior of our model, and find that the cup is 50±2% full.

Kingfisher & Wombat @tkingfisher.com · Nov 24

Optimist: The cup is half full

Pessimist: The cup is half empty

Writer: …did I have a plan for this cup? Was it supposed to link to some other part of the plot? Crap. I really don’t want to go through and take every mention of the cup out. Maybe I can kill someone with it.

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Reposted by Monash Astrophysics

Rowina Nathan ✨ @pinkastrophysicist.bsky.social · Nov 25

What is the difference between gravitational-wave signals measured by LIGO and pulsar timing arrays? Well lots of things, but mainly the mass of the black holes. This infographic summarises the differences. 👀🕳️💫

An infographic explaining different black hole mergers. The left side shows two smaller black holes spiralling inwards. The right shows two larger black holes orbiting each other. The text on the left reads: "BINARY BLACK HOLE
MERGER
Observed by: ground-based detectors.
Detector lenth: kilometers
Solar masses: tens to hundreds
Found in: everywhere?
Merger time: seconds
GW period: milliseconds
"Sounds like':) chirp, bang, crash"
The text on the right reads: "SUPERMASSIVE
BINARY BLACK HOLE
Observed by: putsar timing arrays
Detector length: kiloparsecs
Solar masses: millions to billions
Found in? center of large galaxies
Merger time: millions of years*
GW period: years
'Sounds like': rumble, hum"

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Reposted by Monash Astrophysics

Rowina Nathan ✨ @pinkastrophysicist.bsky.social · Nov 21

How can pulsars be used to detect gravitational waves? Ripples in spacetime affect the path of light!

I'll be posting some fun infographics in the lead up to my paper release on December 3! Follow along so you're ready for the release 🌟 @ozgrav.bsky.social

Cartoon infographic showing two orbiting black holes rippling spacetime. A pink pulsar gives off a beam of light being rippled by the gravitational waves before reaching Earth. The text reads "Orbiting black holes generate gravitational waves. Gravitational waves stretch and squeeze spacetime. Curving spacetime changes the path of light."

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Reposted by Monash Astrophysics

Teagan Clarke @astroteagan.bsky.social · Nov 12

~Infer gamma-ray burst jet physics with this one weird trick!~
A population of neutron star-black hole mergers might let us discover new physics about GRB jets. 🔭 🧪
Check out my brand new paper with @plasky.bsky.social and Eric Thrane to find out more.
arxiv.org/abs/2411.07035

Figure 1 from https://arxiv.org/abs/2411.07035
Schematic explaining the possible fates of an NSBH merger, depending on the binary parameters. We are interested
in answering the question: what threshold remnant baryonic mass is required to launch a GRB jet? We consider the remnant
mass and orientation of the system as the two requirements to measure a GRB from an NSBH merger.

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Monash Astrophysics @monashastro.bsky.social · Nov 11

Huge congratulations to Tom who submitted his PhD thesis “Multi-Dimensional Radiative Transfer Calculations for Asymmetric Stripped-Envelope Supernovae” today ✨🎉💥

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Reposted by Monash Astrophysics

CosmicRami 🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️ @cosmicrami.com · Oct 31

Almost forgot!

Oct 31 is the anniversary of Murriyang starting operations in 1961!

63 years of operation, and it’s still giving us solid science/discoveries.

Iconic Aussie astronomy infrastructure.

Wrote some words on this a few years back: www.spaceaustralia.com/index.php/fe...

📸 CSIRO 🔭📡

Old black and white image of the Parkes radio telescope in an open field. Taken during the early days of telescope operations.

Old black and white photo of the Parkes radio telescope under construction with a crane nearby hoisting material onto the top of the skeletal dish structure

The Parkes radio telescope, in the distance. Old black and white photo with sheep grazing in the foreground.

Old black and white photo of men working at building the base of the Parkes radio telescope, with a large ring that has been dug into the ground.

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Monash Astrophysics @monashastro.bsky.social · Oct 31

A spooky pulsar, jack-o-lantern binary carved pumpkin 🎃 Happy Halloween from Monash Astrophysics ✨ #science #space #spooky #halloween

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Reposted by Monash Astrophysics

Dr Space Junk (Alice Gorman) @drspacejunk.bsky.social · Oct 24

I talk about the artificial objects you might see streaking through the skies #SpaceJunk 🧪

www.abc.net.au/news/science...

Reports of 'fireballs' streaking overhead are becoming more common. Here's why

Social media reports of fireballs lighting up the night sky seemingly pop up very regularly — just this week hundreds of people saw one over the US and Canada. Are they becoming more frequent or are w...

www.abc.net.au

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Monash Astrophysics @monashastro.bsky.social · Oct 24

Congratulations to Monash Astrophysicist Dr Fan Liu who was awarded the Monash Faculty of Science Publication Award for their paper At Least One in a Dozen Stars Shows Evidence of Planetary Ingestion, Nature (2024).

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Monash Astrophysics @monashastro.bsky.social · Oct 15

Today we had our beyond third year event, to encourage undergraduate students to consider further study in physics and astronomy. 🪐 🧲 Students mingled with potential supervisors and we are looking forward to welcoming them next year! ✨

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Monash Astrophysics @monashastro.bsky.social · Oct 8

Fingerprints of 1M stars reveal Milky Way's history! The Aussie-led GALAH project releases data from the AAT’s 50th birthday. Monash astrophysicist Madeline Howell contributed key spectroscopic data on M4, an ancient globular cluster that holds clues to our Galaxy's formation. shorturl.at/HwXng

Almost a million stars mapped by Anglo-Australian Telescope

Follow the latest news headlines from Australia's most trusted source. Read in-depth expert analysis and watch live coverage on ABC News.

shorturl.at

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Reposted by Monash Astrophysics

AAS Nova @aasnova.org · Sep 11

New research shows that unusual binary systems containing a magnetar and an unlucky companion star can explain the bumps in the light curves of certain supernovae. aasnova.org/2024/09/11/e... 🔭🧪 @monashastro.bsky.social

Evaporating Stars, Magnetars, and Bumpy Supernova Light Curves - AAS Nova

New research shows that binary systems containing a magnetar and an unlucky companion star can explain bumps in supernova light curves.

aasnova.org

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Reposted by Monash Astrophysics

Duncan K Galloway @duncankgalloway.bsky.social · Sep 16

GRB optical catalog with contributions from S. Belkin
@monashastro.bsky.social "rivals Messier catalog"; sure, but Messier objects just sit there waiting for you to observe them at your leisure, not like GRB optical counterparts which disappear in <~ 1 day! ras.ac.uk/news-and-pre...

Huge gamma-ray burst collection ‘rivals 250-year-old Messier catalogue’

Hundreds of gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) have been recorded as part of an enormous global effort so extensive it "rivals the catalogue of deep-sky objects created by Mess...

ras.ac.uk

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Monash Astrophysics @monashastro.bsky.social · Sep 18

🎉 Huge congratulations to our talented Honours student, Amber Tilly, for being the Regional Winner of the 2024 Global Undergraduate Awards for her report on modelling disk kinematics in protoplanetary disk AS209! 🏆✨

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Monash Astrophysics @monashastro.bsky.social · Sep 5

New research from Monash Astrophysicists shows how next-gen gravitational-wave detectors will revolutionise our understanding of neutron stars. They could measure neutron star radii with 10x better precision than LIGO-Virgo-KAGRA! 🌌🌠 #GravitationalWaves shorturl.at/hRMxZ

Precision constraints on the neutron star equation of state with third-generation gravitational-wave observatories

It is currently unknown how matter behaves at the extreme densities found within the cores of neutron stars. Gravitational waves from binary neutron star mergers encode rich information about the star...

shorturl.at

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Monash Astrophysics @monashastro.bsky.social · Sep 3

On Friday Maddy and Giulia submitted their PhD theses and went on the famous walk to the graduate research office to collect their pens. We’re proud of their hard work and excited for the bright futures ahead. Congratulations Maddy and Giulia!

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