Ray Norris is an astrophysicist and science communicator, based at the

CSIRO The Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO) is an Australian Government agency responsible for scientific research. CSIRO works with leading organisations around the world. From its headquarters in Canberra, CSIRO ...

Australia Telescope National Facility The Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO)'s radio astronomy observatories are collectively known as the Australia Telescope National Facility (ATNF), with the facility supporting Australia's research in radio astrono ...

, and

Western Sydney University Western Sydney University, formerly the University of Western Sydney, is an Australian multi-campus university in the Greater Western region of Sydney, Australia. The university in its current form was founded in 1989 as a federated network ...

, and conducts research in

astrophysics Astrophysics is a science that employs the methods and principles of physics and chemistry in the study of astronomical objects and phenomena. As one of the founders of the discipline said, Astrophysics "seeks to ascertain the nature of the he ...

and

Aboriginal Astronomy Australian Aboriginal astronomy is a name given to Aboriginal Australian culture relating to astronomical subjects – such as the Sun and Moon, the stars, planets, and the Milky Way, and their motions on the sky. Traditional Aboriginal cu ...

Early life

Ray Norris was born in

London London is the capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary dow ...

and grew up in

Brookmans Park Brookmans Park is a village in Hertfordshire, southeast England, known for its BBC transmitter station. Brookmans Park railway station, on the East Coast Main Line, is operated by Great Northern. It is also a waypoint used in air navigation ...

, Hertfordshire,

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe ...

in 1953. He attended high school at St. Albans School and then went to

Cambridge University , mottoeng = Literal: From here, light and sacred draughts. Non literal: From this place, we gain enlightenment and precious knowledge. , established = , other_name = The Chancellor, Masters and Schola ...

, where he received an honours degree in theoretical physics. He then went to the

Jodrell Bank Observatory Jodrell Bank Observatory () in Cheshire, England, hosts a number of radio telescopes as part of the Jodrell Bank Centre for Astrophysics at the University of Manchester. The observatory was established in 1945 by Bernard Lovell, a radio astr ...

of the

University of Manchester The University of Manchester is a public university, public research university in Manchester, England. The main campus is south of Manchester city centre, Manchester City Centre on Wilmslow Road, Oxford Road. The university owns and operates majo ...

where he received his PhD in radio-astronomy in 1978, working on

astrophysical masers An astrophysical maser is a naturally occurring source of stimulated spectral line emission, typically in the microwave portion of the electromagnetic spectrum. This emission may arise in molecular clouds, comets, planetary atmospheres, ste ...

. At the same time, he started to develop an interest in the

archaeoastronomy Archaeoastronomy (also spelled archeoastronomy) is the interdisciplinary or multidisciplinary study of how people in the past "have understood the phenomena in the sky, how they used these phenomena and what role the sky played in their cultu ...

of Stonehenge and other

megalithic A megalith is a large stone that has been used to construct a prehistoric structure or monument, either alone or together with other stones. There are over 35,000 in Europe alone, located widely from Sweden to the Mediterranean sea. The ...

observatories, joined a group of students led by

Clive Ruggles Clive L. N. Ruggles (born 1952) is a British astronomer, archaeologist and academic. He is the author of academic and popular works on the subject. In 1999, he was appointed professor of archaeoastronomy at the School of Archaeology and Ancient Hi ...

and spent several years surveying the

stone circles A stone circle is a ring of standing stones. Most are found in Northwestern Europe – especially in Britain, Ireland, and Brittany – and typically date from the Late Neolithic and Early Bronze Age, with most being built from 3000 BC. The ...

of the British Isles.

Career

He moved to Australia in 1983 to work for the

. He was appointed as head of astrophysics in 1994, and deputy director in 2000. In 2001 he led the successful bid for Australian astronomy under the Australian federal government’s “Major National Research Facilities” program, and then became director of the Australian astronomy MNRF. In 2005 he resigned from management positions to return to research. In 2013 he retired from CSIRO but was appointed as a CSIRO Honorary Fellow. In 2015 he was appointed as a Research Professor at

Writing

In 2011, Norris published his first novel, ''Graven Images''.

Aboriginal Astronomy

Norris is well known for his work on

, and was an adjunct professor in the department of Indigenous Studies at

Macquarie University Macquarie University ( ) is a Public university, public research university based in Sydney, Australia, in the suburb of Macquarie Park, New South Wales, Macquarie Park. Founded in 1964 by the New South Wales Government, it was the third univer ...

. His work has featured in many radio and TV programs, including ABC TV's ''Message Stick'', and ABC Radio National's ''The First Astronomers''. In August 2009 he featured in a two-man ''The First Astronomers'' show with Wardaman elder

Bill Yidumduma Harney Bill Yidumduma Harney is an elder of the Wardaman people, known as an artist, storyteller, and musician. As of 2022, he lives at Menngen Station, near Katherine in the Northern Territory of Australia, which lies in the traditional lands of the ...

at the Darwin Festival. In 2009 he published the boo
Emu Dreaming
with his wife, Priscilla Norris

Astrophysics

From 2000 to 2005 Norris led the Australia Telescope Large Area Survey (ATLAS) project, imaging the faintest radio galaxies and star-forming galaxies in the universe, to understand how they form and evolve. In 2009 he led a team that proposed the

EMU The emu () (''Dromaius novaehollandiae'') is the second-tallest living bird after its ratite relative the ostrich. It is endemic to Australia where it is the largest native bird and the only extant member of the genus '' Dromaius''. The ...

project, operating on the new

ASKAP The Australian Square Kilometre Array Pathfinder (ASKAP) is a radio telescope array located at Murchison Radio-astronomy Observatory (MRO) in the Mid West region of Western Australia. The facility began as a technology demonstrator for the in ...

telescope to survey of the sky at radio wavelengths, and led the EMU project until he stepped down in 2020. He also researches cosmology and dark energy.Cosmology
''ABC Catalyst segment on Cosmology, with Ray Norris,

Lawrence Krauss Lawrence Maxwell Krauss (born May 27, 1954) is an American theoretical physicist and cosmologist who previously taught at Arizona State University, Yale University, and Case Western Reserve University. He founded ASU's Origins Project, now ca ...

, and

Brian Schmidt Brian Paul Schmidt (born 24 February 1967) is the Vice-Chancellor of the Australian National University (ANU). He was previously a Distinguished Professor, Australian Research Council Laureate Fellow and astrophysicist at the University's ...

'' In 2020 he led a team that discovered previously unknown circles of radio emission in the sky, which they called "

Odd radio circle In astronomy, an odd radio circle (ORC) is a very large (over 50 thousand times the diameter of our Milky Way ~ 3 Million Light-years) unexplained astronomical object that, at radio wavelengths, is highly circular and brighter along its edges. ...

s".

Sources

* http://www.atnf.csiro.au/people/rnorris/ * http://science.uniserve.edu.au/faces/norris/norris.html * http://www.emudreaming.com/about.htm
Norris, R.P. & Hamacher, D.W., 2009,"The Astronomy of Aboriginal Australia", In "The Role of Astronomy in Society and Culture", edited by D. Valls-Gabaud & A. Boksenberg. Cambridge University Press, pp. 39-47.
* "Emu Dreaming" by Ray Norris & CIlla Norris,

ABC Radio National "The First Astronomers" transcript on web
Ri Aus - people in Science

External links

ABC Radio National "Ockhams Razor" podcast and transcript on Ray Norris's work, presented by Robyn Williams

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Norris, Ray 1953 births Living people Australian astrophysicists 20th-century Australian astronomers 20th-century British astronomers People from Welwyn Hatfield (district) 21st-century Australian astronomers