Research in astronomy, cosmology and astrophysics

Research groups and labs

• Astrophysics

  The Astrophysics research group spans cosmology, extragalactic astronomy, extreme objects, relativistic astrophysics, cultural astronomy, and knowledge management associated with virtual observatories and software telescopes.

• Cosmology and Astroparticle Physics

  Using a mixture of experiments, simulation and theory, researchers in the School of Physics are investigating topics from the nature of dark matter and dark energy to what happened during inflation, a burst of ultra-fast expansion in the early Universe.

• Cultural and Indigenous Astronomy

  Our research explores the role of astronomy in history, culture, and society, how this can be passed on through education and communication programs, and the ways our collective astronomical heritage can be safeguarded for future generations.

• Experimental Particle Physics

  Experimental particle physics seeks to understand the universe at its most fundamental level. Our work includes the search for dark matter, collider physics, matter-antimatter asymmetry and physics beyond the Standard Model.

• Extragalactic Astrophysics

  With about 50 billion galaxies, our observable Universe is full of mysteries that involve physics from atomic processes and interactions between matter and light on the microscopic level, to gravitational forces acting over trillions of trillions of kilometres.

• High Energy Astrophysics

  A diverse research area concerned with modelling phenomena like cosmic-ray shock acceleration, supernovae and other cosmic explosions, relativistic winds and jets, accretion disks, extreme gravitational and magnetic fields, non-thermal and coherent radiation mechanisms, and the equation of state of bulk nuclear matter.

• Melbourne Space Lab

  Melbourne Space Laboratory develops innovative miniaturised payloads and technological solutions for nanosatellites, enabling scientific investigations, commercial opportunities and defence applications traditionally restricted to substantially larger and more expensive satellites.