Next year?

The lights-off on one year always gets us thinking about the next. Here’s what the Cosmos newsroom (along with our podcast host, Sophie Calabretto) is looking forward to in 2023.

Sophie Calabretto

After what I learnt this year, I’m excited: they’re teaching AI to make dubstep. And unlike self-driving cars, it’s going to work. I’m also looking forward to eating gummy bears that were once wind turbine blades.

Matthew Agius

Several fascinating space exploration projects are set to hit their stride next year, like NASA’S Psyche mission to explore a metal asteroid, Europe’s dark matter telescope Euclid and Jupiter moon study JUICE, and potentially the first All-australian orbital rocket Eris.

Clare Kenyon

Imagine you could stick a pipe in the ground, whip out some hot water, extract the heat and then pump the water back underground. This isn’t (just) a pipe dream: Australia has vast underground heated aquifers we could use.

Ellen Phiddian

It’ll be a good year for the sunniest parts of regional Australia: half a dozen big batteries, several huge solar farms and maybe even a hydrogen electrolyser factory are slated to open. And a total solar eclipse will be grazing Exmouth, WA.

Petra Stock

Looking for solutions to transport emissions beyond car- and tech-centric approaches. Research which lights the path towards more efficient, cleaner, healthier, friendlier cities by moving more people and goods via buses, trains, bikes and walking.

Jacinta Bowler

I’m excited about Australia’s next steps in space and quantum computing. Both of those are areas where we excel – and between satellite launches and silicon quantum computers we’re on the cusp of something great. Also cool: satellites capable of tracking big emitters to hold them to account.

Evrim Yazgin

SABRE South is a Victorian experiment searching for dark matter mirrored in the northern hemisphere. In 2023, SABRE will hopefully produce results confirming or denying the presence of dark matter, hypothesised to be five times more abundant than regular matter in the universe.

Imma Perfetto

I’m most excited about seeing how Bluetooth tagging and citizen science can be used together for tracking koala populations in my own backyard here in Adelaide. And, as always, I’m eagerly awaiting 2023’s published research about the science of dogs – which never fails to amaze me.