Astronomy from Space
The Distant Universe from Space Telescopes

Extragalactic astrophysics is a stand-out strength of the University of Western Australia (UWA), led by Australian Laureate Professor Simon Driver through the International Centre for Radio Astronomy Research. Galaxies typically emit radiation at all wavelengths and only a small fraction of this energy penetrates to the ground, in doing so the images that do reach the ground become blurred and distorted. Space telescopes are critical for both high-resolution imaging at optical and near-infrared wavelengths and to sample wavelength ranges not possible from the ground such as the x-ray and far-infrared.

This group specialises in “fusing” data from leading space and ground based facilities to study the distribution of dark-matter, the evolution of galaxy properties over time, and the primary energy production pathways operating across the timeline of the Universe. This involves the processing of large and disparate data flows from many of NASA and ESA’s flagship space telescope missions as well as those from other agencies.

Key focusses at the moment is the use of the Hubble and James Webb Space Telescopes to study the formation of the first galaxies, and to reconstruction the cosmic star-formation history and the cosmic black hole accretion history over the age of the Universe. Future efforts will focus on the recently launched ESA Euclid and NASA SPHEREx missions, and the upcoming Nancy Grace Roman mission.

 Much of the space-telescope data processed by this node is downlinked through Australian-based facilities at Tidbinbilla, ACT and New Norcia, WA. The group also acts as a liason with NASA and ESA around downlink activities and exploration of new and novel pathways for rapid data analysis at the downlink site and data fusion.