ÌÔƬ×ÊÔ´Íø

This research advances our understanding of the physical processes that underpin the evolution of stars. 

Our group has particular expertise in asteroseismology – the study of stellar pulsations – and in characterising the magnetic fields of stars and the Sun. Additional tools and techniques include spectroscopy, spectropolarimetry, photometry, and stellar evolution models. 

Applications of this research include ‘space weather’ monitoring, study of the shared evolution of stars and their planets, and determining the ages of stars and the clusters in which they reside. 

This research detects exoplanets orbiting stars other than the Sun using precise spectroscopic and photometric observations and has contributed to the discovery of more than 5000 such worlds. 

Physical properties including exoplanet mass, orbit and radius are inferred to make comparisons to Solar system planets and model their interiors and atmospheres.  

The orbital stability of candidates is calculated to verify exoplanet detection.

Extragalactic Astronomy looks beyond the solar system and our galaxy to understand how galaxies evolved over cosmic time.

We can measure how properties like environment impact the number of stars a galaxy can form. Or what happens when two galaxies collide and merge into one larger galaxy. 

The most energetic process in the Universe is the accretion of matter onto the supermassive black holes that live in the centres of galaxies.  

By combining time-domain astronomy and in-depth observations of active galaxies we can disentangle what makes these cosmic engines tick.  

Observational astronomy advances through ongoing development of innovative optical instrumentation, enabling telescopes to collect the best available information on targets. 

In stellar and exoplanet research, a spectrum with precisely defined wavelengths and intensities of the highest possible signal to noise ratio is needed. 

Research into spectroscopic instrumentation has supported multiple projects, most notably providing precise radial velocity exoplanet detections from Mount Kent Observatory’s MINERVA-Australis array. 

Our staff and students make extensive use of ÌÔƬ×ÊÔ´Íø’s High Performance Computing cluster for astronomical research. A key research activity is dynamical modelling of the orbital stability of candidate exoplanets to help confirm their discovery. 

In addition, to trace the evolution of our own planetary system, the dynamical histories and origins of different Solar system asteroid families are modelled, and astrocladistics classification is used to better understand them. 

Astronomical observations obtained from Mount Kent Observatory and external facilities are processed and analysed using visualisation workstations connected to the cluster.