On Tuesday the 14th July at 8pm, Friends of the Library will be proud to host Prof. Peter Quinn, presenting an overview of modern astronomy.
First Light
An overview of modern astronomy and our quest to find the dawn of creation
We are now nearing a period in our cosmic time travel that will contain one of the Universe’s most profound events –the first light from the first star – the “dawn of creation”. This event will be found and studied by a new telescope which, when completed in 2020, will be the world’s largest astronomical facility. The telescope is called the Square Kilometre Array (SKA) and Western Australia is currently the front-runner in an international competition to host the SKA. The remote desert of WA, home to Aboriginal peoples who are arguably the world’s first astronomers, may provide mankind with its clearest view of the first objects created – the seeds of the Universe we see around us today.
In my talk, I will give an overview of our cosmic journey - what we have found so far, what mysteries we have uncovered and what we hope to find with the new generation of telescopes we are about to build.
Prof Peter Quinn
Premier’s Fellow
School of Physics, UWA
Tuesday 14 July 2009 at 7:30pm for 8pm Start
Library Meeting Room
Ground Floor, Reid Library
The University of Western Australia
| Members: Free | Non-Members: $5 Donation |
Please note that the ground floor entrance to the Library, nearest to the carpark, will be open from 7.30pm - 7.45pm.
Prof Peter Quinn received a BSc(Physics) from the University of Wollongong in 1978 and a PhD in astronomy from ANU in 1982. Following postdoctoral appointments at Caltech, NASA and ANU, he worked as Division Head at the European Southern Observatory (Munich). He was awarded a Western Australian Premier’s Fellowship and took up a position at UWA in August 2006. In December 2008, he became Director of the International Centre for Radio Astronomy Research, a new centre funded by the WA Government, UWA and Curtin University. Prof. Quinn is working with the WA and Federal governments and CSIRO to maximize the chances of Australia’s winning the bid to site the $3 billion AUD internati onal Square Kilometre Array radio telescope in the midwest region of WA.
