Aussie astronomer's theory claims prize
SMH July 17, 2007
An Australian astronomer has been honoured with a top international science prize for finding evidence of a mysterious force causing the universe to expand at an ever-increasing rate.
Australian National University professor Brian Schmidt's discovery shocked the physics community when it was published in 1998.
But the idea is now widely accepted, leading to the researcher and his team being awarded the prestigious and lucrative Gruber Prize for Cosmology, the branch of astronomy that deals with the origin, evolution and general structure of the universe.
"When I made this discovery it was hard to believe," Prof Schmidt said.
"I think it's pretty much consensus now that what we saw in the field was real - as crazy as it seems."
The researchers used the Hubble Space Telescope and ground-based telescopes in Australia, Hawaii and Chile to analyse the light arriving from 14 supernovae, or exploding stars, that were seven billion to 10 billion light years from earth...
Prof Schmidt is now heading the five-year Southern Sky Survey, which will begin next year and aims to capture the most sensitive map yet of the southern hemisphere sky using the Skymapper telescope.
The telescope will be shipped to the Siding Spring Observatory near Coonabarabran from the US later this year...
More at:
http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2007/...559792978.html
