Interstellar medium

Studying the gas and dust between the stars

Research projects in this area study the detailed physics of the interstellar medium (ISM), to understand how it has evolved in our Milky Way and nearby galaxies, and how it impacts star formation in the Universe.

Our researchers use varied techniques – from radio, optical and infra-red observations, to numerical models and analytical theory.

Learn more about the projects we are undertaking, the researchers engaged in them and who you can contact to get involved.

Revealing dust properties in distant environments

Cosmic dust plays a crucial role in the formation of galaxies. Measuring dust extinction at different wavelengths reveals information about dust grain sizes, compositions and properties.

Our detailed knowledge of dust is limited to local calibrators like our own Milky Way, which limits the accuracy of deriving properties for high-redshift objects like quasars and gamma-ray bursts.

This project will use multi-wavelength spectroscopic and photometric observations from various telescopes (including ESO VLT) for these high-redshift objects to generate their spectral energy distributions and hence derive individual extinction curves rather than using reference Local Group extinction laws.

To get involved in this project, contact: Tayyaba Zafar

The Australia Square Kilometre Array Pathfinder as a hydroxyl absorption machine

The Australia Square Kilometre Array Pathfinder (ASKAP) comprises 36 linked radio dishes in the desert of Western Australia. ASKAP is pioneering new radio telescope technologies, driving some of the fastest and deepest surveys of the radio sky.

In this project you will lead the analysis of the first OH absorption data from the GASKAP-OH survey, which is producing the widest and most sensitive interferometric survey of OH ever undertaken. You will use OH absorption spectra to seek out hidden clouds of molecular hydrogen (H2) in the Milky Way and measure how much of the Galaxy's molecular gas is hiding in plain sight.

This project is co-supervised at CSIRO Space and Astronomy, who design, build and operate Australia’s national radio astronomical infrastructure.

To get involved in this project, contact: Joanne Dawson

Using pulsars to probe interstellar sheets and filaments at the Solar System scale

In this project you will explore the structure of cool interstellar matter on scales as small as the Earth-Sun distance, a topic recently stimulated by James Webb Telescope observations of small-scale filaments and sheets in the normal interstellar medium.

You will use observations of interstellar gas seen in absorption against radio pulsars by the Parkes Murriyang radio telescope. As a pulsar moves behind a foreground gas cloud, you may see tiny changes in interstellar absorption spectra that are the tell-tale signs of some of the smallest interstellar structures ever measured.

This project is co-supervised at CSIRO Space and Astronomy, who design, build and operate Australia’s national radio astronomical infrastructure.

To get involved in this project, contact: Joanne Dawson