The International Centre for Radio Astronomy Research (ICRAR) is a multi-institutional

astronomy Astronomy is a natural science that studies celestial objects and the phenomena that occur in the cosmos. It uses mathematics, physics, and chemistry in order to explain their origin and their overall evolution. Objects of interest includ ...

research centre A research institute, research centre, or research organization is an establishment founded for doing research. Research institutes may specialize in basic research or may be oriented to applied research. Although the term often implies natural sc ...

based in

Perth, Western Australia Perth () is the list of Australian capital cities, capital city of Western Australia. It is the list of cities in Australia by population, fourth-most-populous city in Australia, with a population of over 2.3 million within Greater Perth . The ...

. The centre is a joint venture between

Curtin University Curtin University (previously Curtin University of Technology and Western Australian Institute of Technology) is an Australian public university, public research university based in Bentley, Western Australia, Bentley, Perth, Western Australia. ...

and the

University of Western Australia University of Western Australia (UWA) is a public research university in the Australian state of Western Australia. The university's main campus is in Crawley, Western Australia, Crawley, a suburb in the City of Perth local government area. UW ...

, with 'nodes' located at both universities. As of 2024, ICRAR has approximately 150 staff and students across both nodes.

History

ICRAR launched in August 2009 with funding support from the State Government of Western Australia. Initially funded for five years to support Australia's bid to host the SKA telescopes, its funding was extended for an additional five year periods in 2013 (ICRAR II), 2019 (ICRAR III) and 2024 (ICRAR IV). In 2013, ICRAR became the first user of the

Pawsey Supercomputing Centre The Pawsey Supercomputing Centre (PSC) is the government-supported high-performance computing national facility located in Perth, Western Australia. Pawsey supports researchers in Western Australia and across Australia through the Pawsey Centre ...

, based in

Kensington Kensington is an area of London in the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea, around west of Central London. The district's commercial heart is Kensington High Street, running on an east–west axis. The north-east is taken up by Kensingt ...

Research

Although radio astronomy features in the centre's name, its research has expanded to include

optical Optics is the branch of physics that studies the behaviour and properties of light, including its interactions with matter and the construction of instruments that use or detect it. Optics usually describes the behaviour of visible, ultravio ...

and multi-wavelength astronomy. Each of the centre's two university nodes specialises in different areas of astronomical research. The Curtin node specialises in extragalactic radio science,

accretion Accretion may refer to: Science * Accretion (astrophysics), the formation of planets and other bodies by collection of material through gravity * Accretion (meteorology), the process by which water vapor in clouds forms water droplets around nucl ...

physics and slow transients, the

epoch of reionisation In the fields of Big Bang theory and cosmology, reionization is the process that caused electrically neutral atoms in the primordial universe to reionize after the lapse of the " dark ages". Detecting and studying the reionization process is ch ...

, and

pulsars A pulsar (''pulsating star, on the model of quasar'') is a highly magnetized rotating neutron star that emits beams of electromagnetic radiation out of its magnetic poles. This radiation can be observed only when a beam of emission is pointin ...

& other fast transients. The UWA node specialises in studying

galaxies A galaxy is a system of stars, stellar remnants, interstellar gas, dust, and dark matter bound together by gravity. The word is derived from the Greek ' (), literally 'milky', a reference to the Milky Way galaxy that contains the Solar Sys ...

in the local and distant

Universe The universe is all of space and time and their contents. It comprises all of existence, any fundamental interaction, physical process and physical constant, and therefore all forms of matter and energy, and the structures they form, from s ...

, and

cosmological Cosmology () is a branch of physics and metaphysics dealing with the nature of the universe, the cosmos. The term ''cosmology'' was first used in English in 1656 in Thomas Blount's ''Glossographia'', with the meaning of "a speaking of the wo ...

theory, with a particular focus on galactic and cosmological simulations. The UWA node also operates a data intensive astronomy program, which researches techniques for managing and processing the large amounts of data created by current and future radio telescopes. Both nodes also operate engineering research programs, largely dedicated to the design and operation of

radio telescopes A radio telescope is a specialized antenna (radio), antenna and radio receiver used to detect radio waves from astronomical radio sources in the sky. Radio telescopes are the main observing instrument used in radio astronomy, which studies the r ...

and development of related spin-off technologies. In particular, the timing and synchronisation system for the SKA-Mid radio telescope and the power and signal distribution system for the SKA-Low radio telescope were designed at developed at ICRAR's UWA and Curtin nodes, respectively. ICRAR has also contributed to the design, technical operations and science programs of several Australian SKA precursors and prototypes, including the

Murchison Widefield Array The Murchison Widefield Array (MWA) is a joint project between an international consortium of organisations to construct and operate a low-frequency radio array. 'Widefield' refers to its very large field of view (on the order of 30 degrees ac ...

(MWA), the

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

(ASKAP), and the Aperture Array Verification Systems (AAVS1,2&3), located at Inyarrimanha Ilgari Bundara, the CSIRO Murchison Radio-astronomy Observatory.

Management

ICRAR is governed by a board, with representatives from the governmnent, both universities, and other stakeholders including the CSIRO. The inaugural board chair was Bernard Bowen, (February 2009 - July 2016). The current chair is David Skellern, appointed March 2024. ICRAR's day-to-day operations are managed by an executive team with members across both university nodes. The founding executive director was Peter Quinn (2009-2022). The current executive director is Simon Ellingsen.

Citizen Science

ICRAR has run several successful

citizen science The term citizen science (synonymous to terms like community science, crowd science, crowd-sourced science, civic science, participatory monitoring, or volunteer monitoring) is research conducted with participation from the general public, or am ...

projects.

theSkyNet ''theSkyNet'' was a research project that used volunteer Internet-connected computers to carry out research in astronomy. It was an initiative of the International Centre for Radio Astronomy Research (ICRAR), a joint venture of Curtin University a ...

employed Internet-connected computers owned by the general public to do research in astronomy using

BOINC The Berkeley Open Infrastructure for Network Computing (BOINC, pronounced rhymes with "oink") is an open-source middleware system for volunteer computing (a type of distributed computing). Developed originally to support SETI@home, it became the ...

technology. It combined the spectral coverage of the

GALEX Galaxy Evolution Explorer (GALEX or Explorer 83 or SMEX-7) was a NASA orbiting space telescope designed to observe the universe in ultraviolet wavelengths to measure the history of star formation in the universe. In addition to paving the way ...

, Pan-STARRS1, and WISE to generate a multi-wavelength (ultra-violet - optical - near infra-red) galaxy atlas for the nearby Universe. In September 2014 theSkyNet had 13573 total users, and 5198 recent users. theSkyNet was powered down in 2018. AstroQuest launched in 2019, and aimed to help Australian scientists understand how galaxies grow and evolve. Users inspected images of galaxies, and used paint tools to help classify light as coming from the galaxy or from other sources. As of 2021, approximately 10,000 users had classified the complete dataset of 60,000 galaxies, and the project is on indefinite hold awaiting more galaxies to classify.

Notable discoveries

In 2022, an unusual slow periodic radio transient was discovered in archival data in GLEAM (GaLactic and Extragalactic All-sky Murchison Widefield Array Survey), catalogued as GLEAM-XJ162759.5-523504, the astrophysical radio source had an 18 minute period with 1 minute long bursts, not matching any then known periodic variables.

References