SHOOTING FOR THE STARS
$6m upgrades to help USQ find new worlds
A TOOWOOMBA space facility has been described as a “waypoint towards a future age of wonders”.
Expansions to the Mt Kent Observatory were unveiled yesterday, the $6 million upgrade providing a platform for world-class research.
The USQ facility has now become an integral part of a NASA project, helping in the search for new planets.
USQ Centre for Astrophysics Director Professor Brad Carter said the facilities would help the region capitalise on the growing opportunities presented by the international space industry.
EXPANSIONS to the Mt Kent observatory will allow the University of Southern Queensland to aid NASA in its search for a new earth.
The Minister for Industry, Science and Technology Karen Andrews joined USQ ViceChancellor Professor Geraldine Mackenzie to launch the upgrades at a ceremony yesterday.
The $6 million facility includes an array of new telescopes and technology, putting USQ at the forefront.
Mt Kent now forms a piece of an intricate NASA puzzle. It is the only southern-hemisphere facility supporting the agency’s Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS).
A planet hunting space telescope, TESS will transmit information on which stars could have planets orbiting them.
Researchers at USQ will then use telescopes at the Mt Kent facility to confirm whether the planets exist.
The facility has already helped to identify three exoplanets since the project’s launch last year.
“These exoplanets that Mt Kent is helping to discover and characterise may include potentially inhabitable nearby worlds that interstellar probes could conceivably visit over the next century,” USQ director of the centre of Astrophysics Professor Brad Carter said.
On a clear night in Toowoomba you will find Dr Jonti Horner and a team of other USQ researchers up at Mt Kent.
“These expansions are bringing us into the 21st century, almost the 22nd century they are giving us the incredible ability to lead the world from south-east Queensland,” Dr Horner said.
“The facility also plays a unique role geographically. Most of the other southern hemisphere facilities are in Africa and Chile - when it’s daylight there it’s dark here. We can now have 24/7 night sky coverage.”
Once completed, Mt Kent Observatory will have a total of 13 telescopes installed.
Several other international research projects are to start at the facility this year.
Photo: Kevin Farmer