Hi and thank you for joining us today
for this live streaming event in YouTube.
Now my name is Sylvia Choi
and I'm a science educator at CAASTRO
which is the Centre of Excellence for All-sky Astrophysics.
Here today we have Dr Vanessa Moss
talking to us about why study physics.
Now remember if you have any questions or comments
during the talk,
please either send them to us by email or Tweet to us, live,
and we'll actually put them live on screen
during the presentation
and the Twitter handle is #citc16.
Now I'll join with you again, at the end, with some Q&A
but for now I'll leave you with Dr Vanessa Moss.
OK, hi everyone my name is Vanessa
and today I'm going to give you an idea
of why I think you should study physics
and also frame it in terms of what I call exploring the Universe.
Firstly, who am I?
I'm Vanessa, I'm an astrophysicist
so let's talk a little bit about what that means.
Astrophysics is a little different to astronomy
because we have the word physics in it.
So if we ask Google, which is a good thing to generally do,
then you see that it emphasises the physics of bodies
not just looking at them
but what is really going on
far away in galaxies, in other planetary systems, in stars.
So that's what astrophysics is
that's what separates it from astronomy.
When I was a kid, I thought that astronomy and astrophysics
was probably similar to some of the ideas that you have.
So I dreamt of standing on one of the moons of Saturn
and looking up at it filling the sky.
I still think that would be a really cool thing to do
or something like this other image here.
I had a little meteorite
that my parents bought me when I was at a science museum.
I read books about science, about stars
and how they worked.
I learnt about what stars were really made of
from Pumbaa in The Lion King
and I also had my own telescope
which I was pretty proud
to show my parents and my friends
Jupiter or Saturn through the telescope.
So this is what I thought when I was a kid
but as I was growing up I actually...
for a long time I wanted to be a writer
so I didn't start off thinking, from the time I was five,
that I would be an astronomer
it's something that evolved over the course of my studies.
So what does an astrophysicist study?
What you see now
are some of the different physical objects
that I've studied in astronomy over time.
Ranging from in the top left...
I guess, from your perspective...
the top left is the Milky Way
so our home galaxy
and I studied that for my PhD.
I've also studied supernova remnants,
high-velocity clouds in our halo,
and also a super shell that looks like an icecream cone
if you flip it upside down
so you can see that now.
Recently what I'm studying is hydrogen in adsorption
towards some of the very distant galaxies
that we can see with our telescopes
and so that's very exciting as well
and quite different to what I've studied in the past
and there's a lot of different things
you can study as an astrophysicist.
So what do we do in our everyday jobs, you're probably wondering.
As I'm an observational astronomer
that means a big part of my job is using telescopes
and this is super exciting for me
because I love data
and I love seeing what the data can tell you
and being the first person to really see
what the telescope has collected
from galaxies or planets or stars.
So that's a big part of our job
if you're an observational astronomy
you get to use telescopes.
These are some of the telescopes that you could potentially use
and some of them I've used, either directly,
or I've used the data from them.
There's a mix of different kinds of telescopes
which we'll come back to with the electromagnetic spectrum
but what you can see there's optical telescopes,
infrared telescopes, x-ray telescopes
and for me, because I'm a radio astronomer,
there's also radio telescopes.
Some of the other things you can do
you can also visit telescopes in person,
I've been very lucky to do that.
Obviously, if your telescope of choices is Hubble
that's a lot more difficult
but if there is a chance, it's a very good experience
to learn exactly how the telescope works,
how the engineers keep it functioning from day to day,
so that's been a really valuable experience
as part of being an astronomer.
We also write papers so that's the main way
we can communicate, what we do, with other astronomers.
We want to be able to say
this is what I studied, these are my results
and also find out what their results are too.
Writing papers is a huge part of communicating what you've found.
We chat to others...
people might not think there's a huge social aspect of it
but actually, every day we're talking to our colleagues,
we're emailing people overseas that we're working with,
we go to conferences,
we're constantly trying to keep up to date
with what other people are working on
and how that relates to what we're doing.
So chatting to others is also a big part of our job.
We present our results
so this is in a more formal way
so at a big conference you might have a talk spot
in which case you'll have about 20 minutes,
which is what I have today,
to communicate the point.
What is your research?
What's the big question?
What are the results you want people to take away from it?
This is a photo of me at...
I think it was the ASA
which is a big astronomy conference in Australia
that takes place every year.
So being able to put your results together
in a nice presentation and communicate clearly
is an important part of our job.
We also have to read papers.
So as well as producing papers
it's important to see what other people are writing
and that's really hard
because there are thousands of papers in astronomy
coming out every year
and so what you can see on the slide here
is a tool that I wrote, with a couple of other people, to
kind of make it easier to see what the results of a paper are
so it's called Archiver, you can check it out,
but what it does is it really highlights the pictures of the papers
so what are the results?
How are they related to the topic of the paper?
One of the really fun things for me
and it was something I learnt over the course of my undergrad
is that we develop code.
So we use Python...well I use Python
but everyone uses different kinds of languages
and we use that code and computers
to really make our lives easier
to make things faster, to calculate and visualise data
and understand what it's telling us.
The code that you can see at the moment
is a Python code and what it produces is this image here.
This is a picture of one of our nearest radio galaxies
it's called Centaurus A.
The background with all the pretty stars is optical
and the white contours that you can see over the top
those are the radio jets that are, kinda like,
coming out from the supermassive black hole
and pushing their way out of the galaxy.
So being able to see that in the data,
using coding is a really important thing.
But what you might not also know
is that you can use code for things that are a little bit different.
What you see now is something
that I've been spending a little bit of my spare time working on
making Zootopia licenses and train tickets
and police badges for people that want them...
so for fans
and so this is an unusual case of using code...
let me just see...as of today, as of right now
the code has produced 2399 licenses,
651 train tickets and 243 police badges
for people all around the world
that most of who I had never known before this.
It even made it to the Russian Facebook page
which is what you see at the right side of the screen
and also to Zootopia director Byron Howard's Twitter feed.
As well as doing coding for astronomy purposes
you can also work it into your life
and do other cool things on the side.
Outreach, so that kind of ties in a little bit.
Outreach means...
we wanna communicate why we think science and astronomy are important
to as many people as possible
and everyone does this in a slightly different way.
We all choose our own ways to do it.
One of the things that I do is
I work sometimes as a guide at Sydney Observatory
which is really fun
and it gives you the hands-on experience of talking to people
who are enthusiastic about astronomy and science, right in the moment.
What does exploring the Universe mean because I've said that a couple of times?
For me, it means having fun with the world around you,
being curious,
being interested in what you can learn every day
no matter what it is.
It doesn't have to be a picture of a planet
it can be anything that you encounter.
For me, sometimes it's looking at fireworks with diffraction gratings
and trying to figure out what elements I'm seeing.
Or throwing chemicals into a fire...
my brother did that, so that's why it's blue
and seeing what comes out.
Or going to Mars for the first time
so this is actually an education centre in Victoria
not the real Mars...
you know that kind of thing, just being interested.
For me it's very much science, a lot of the time,
how can we look at the world through scientific eyes
and just basically have fun.
For you it will be different
so exploring the Universe is the more important thing
that I want you to take away from this.
What are the ingredients for being a good explorer of the Universe?
You need to be curious.
You need to be curious about the world around you.
You can't just be happy with everyday stuff
you need to want to learn more.
You should have a sense of adventure
because everything's more fun
if you have an adventure along the way.
Investigative skills, so this is not just taking things for granted,
figuring out what is the evidence that I see telling me?
What is it really...
how does it pieced together to solve the puzzle?
You should be good at keeping records
that's important, being organised
and keeping track of what you've done.
You need to be able to see the big picture as well
so not just the fine detail of what you might be studying on a given day
but also how does it relate to the bigger picture
of what people are doing in general.
You should be critical because you need to be able to
look at your work and say, does this make sense?
Constantly ask yourself, does this all fit together
in the way I expect, and have a desire to ask questions
which is arguably one of the most important things.
As long as you keep asking questions
then you'll never be satisfied with the status quo,
you wanna be able to look forward beyond that.
Things you'll probably need if you realistically
want to be a physicist or an astronomer
you probably need to finish high school.
The reason I say probably is because
this isn't true of everyone
it depends, it varies a little bit on your specific path
but the majority of cases you need to finish high school.
You'll need to do an undergraduate degree
that involves science
probably physics if you wanna be a physicist.
You do need to do math
and this is a question that comes up a lot...
math is hard and I really love the physics
but I don't love the math as much
and so it's a tool
you need to see it as something that helps you understand the world better
but you can do math at lots of different levels
you don't have to just follow a specific path in math.
Coding, like I said, coding is a really big part of what we do now
and also being familiar with the latest technologies.
This sounds silly, but like, the newest phones
the newest computers, being able to...
virtual reality is a big thing now.
Being able to get on top of those and be familiar with those
will help you in your role as an astronomer
to see how you can do things better
and you also have to be willing to fail
which probably sounds a bit weird, but
you have to understand that, to really get to the end...
to be successful, to figure out something new
that no one else has ever figured out before
you're gonna hit some road bumps along the way
so you need to be prepared for failing sometimes
which is hard, but it is part of what we do.
What path did I take?
I completed my HSC a long time ago, by your standards
I found this... [laughs]
These are the subjects I did, in case anyone's wondering.
This came from my mum's bathroom
where I'd stuck it up back in 2004
and apparently it was still there, so I brought it today,
so those are the subjects.
I did a range of things, I didn't just focus on one
I did all the things that I was interested in
and I had a lot of really great high school teachers too.
At university I still wasn't entirely sure what I wanted to do
so I did a Bachelor of Liberal Studies
which is kind of like arts and science
I majored in physics and Japanese
this included a semester overseas in Tokyo
where I practiced more Japanese and studied
then I transitioned into a PhD in physics which was also
as well as being here at the University of Sydney
it was in collaboration with CSIRO
and during that time I started working at Sydney Observatory as a guide, as well
so that's, kind of, my quick background.
These photos that you can see...
the big photo is the official conference photo
of one of the astronomy conferences I went to near the end of my PhD
and it was just so much fun
it was a lot of people getting together and thinking about
how we do astronomy not just what we do
so, can we do it better?
Can we do it with cool new technologies
especially web technologies?
In that photo the camera was falling off the table
which is why everyone looks so horrified.
The other smaller photo of the group of people
that was my dorm in Japan
so these were the people that I spent my five, six months with
and that was really fun
and also the bottom picture is my first scientific research poster
so I was pretty proud of that.
Let's come to an important question which I get asked a lot
why study physics but also framing it as why not study physics?
What are the reservations that you might have
that are stopping you from taking up physics at a higher level.
These are some of the common reasons, they're not all of them
but these are some of the reasons that you hear a lot...
you need to be really smart, only really geeky people do it
it's really boring
what uses is it...
I could go and be a doctor and save people's lives
or, you know, physics can't take you anywhere...
I'll just be stuck doing boring science in a lab.
The important thing about these physikophobia reasons
is that they're all wrong
and so I'm just gonna focus on the three bottom ones for time
and go into a little bit more detail about why they're wrong.
In high school the focus... and in university as well
the focus is on teaching you the basics.
Before you can construct a model of a black hole
or understand the details of nanoparticles
you need to understand the, kind of, very basic stuff.
How does a ball rolled down a hill?
How does a pulley pull a mass up?
Because with those basics, you can then expand them
so that's why the focus in high school and undergraduate physics
is the more simple things
it's not all the really exotic physics because
you need those fundamentals to be able to move on to the exotic stuff
and I agree with you, wedges and pulleys can be pretty boring
some people really liked them, but I found them boring.
You really have to see it as we're focussing on the fundamentals at the lower levels
so that you're best prepared to do the really cool stuff
once you're on top of all of that
and truthfully Year 11 and 12 physics have a lot of really cool topics
for example, light.
We're not just talking about visible light
which is what you see on this slide
but the whole electromagnetic spectrum.
As a radio astronomer, obviously radio waves are pretty important to me
but it's also important to know that every part of that spectrum
is telling you something different physically.
Radio light is produced in a different way to optical light
so if you can understand what physical processes are making these things
you have a better understanding of the Universe.
Cloud chambers... these are so cool, these are really fun...
by super cooling the air and having all that moisture in there
you can see particles, ionised particle,
that you wouldn't usually be able to see
and you can see their paths and really understand
that there's a subatomic world
way below what we're used to thinking about.
We're used to this macroscopic world
where we can pick up books and sit on chairs
but there's so much going on beyond the limits of what we can see and interact with
so that's really cool too.
Magnetic fields... so magnetic fields are always interesting...
in the context of astronomy
magnetic fields are becoming more and more a part of the things that we have to think about
because it's not just simple physics sometimes
when you have magnetic fields involved things get complicated
and we know that our Milky Way galaxy has a huge magnetic field
and so there's a lot of questions about
how that magnetic field influences
it's a large-scale thing
how does it influence things on our scale?
So a lot of people are studying that as well.
Of course, you know, very tied to astronomy is the Big Bang
so there's so many aspects of cosmology
how the Universe began and how we got to where we are today
and what happened along the way?
We have a lot of questions remaining
as much as we've been able to figure out so far
the most recent thing being gravitational waves
and also the fact that the Universe is expanding faster and faster
we're still trying to piece together a lot of the puzzle pieces
to really figure out how we got to where we are today.
What is dark matter and where did dark energy come from?
How do these things drive our Universe
and those are still really big questions for astronomers
not just anyone studying the Big Bang.
Another aspect of this is what use is physics?
What has it done for you?
How has it improved your life?
Realistically while... there's a step from physics research
into the technology that changes our lives
if we didn't have the physics research in the first place
we would live in a very different world.
So to give you an example of some of the things
that physics has contributed to...
so we have our planet
we wouldn't be in Space if it wasn't for physics
we wouldn't have the ISS,
we wouldn't have rockets,
we wouldn't be able to do all the really cool things
we've done in Space science
without understanding the physics behind it
and then I'm just gonna show you some of the different things
which you probably are aware of...
maybe some you don't know, for sure,
cameras, phones, fibre optics, MRIs, x-rays
rockets, I already said,
there's the Parkes Telescope, GPS
so when you use Google maps to figure out where you're going today
that relies on general relativity
so the time delays between satellites
because they're moving so fast around the Earth
create an effect that means that, if we didn't take that into account,
you wouldn't have the accuracy that we do.
TVs, CERN, Angry Birds... I don't know why I put that in there...
phone games I guess, you know, physics of birds
and the Hubble Deep Field
and the thing that all of these things have in common
is physics.
So it's a really fundamental part
of what we really like about our lives today.
I included this quote because...
Maria Mitchell was an astronomy who lived in the 1840s
and she said "The more that we see, the more we are capable of seeing"
and I think this really highlights
why physics research and physics is so important.
Until we understand more about the world,
this is from the quantum level up to the galaxy scale,
unless we understand that
we don't even know what's possible.
So we need to keep exploring that and keep figuring out what's going on
so that we can truly figure out
all the cool things that we can do in the future.
Alright, so the last thing is physics can't take you anywhere
not even to a job.
Firstly that's not true.
If you like travelling around the world
then becoming a physicist or an academic researcher
it's a really huge part of what we do
because we work with collaborators overseas
we go and visit them, we go to conferences
we travel and, kind of, advertise the work we're doing as well
so it is a necessary part of being an astronomer and being a researcher.
During my PhD... and the list that you see on the slide is in increasing distance...
so obviously Wentworth Falls isn't very far from Sydney...
but I also went to Melbourne, Perth, Narrabri,
Hamilton Island, New York, Boston and Green Bank as part of my PhD.
As part of my postdoc so far, I've been to the Netherlands,
to Germany, to the US and to Canada
to both work with people and take part in conferences
so if you really like travel then it's a great thing to do
because you get to travel a lot...
tiringly so, sometimes.
We can also look at what my friends did, right,
because I became an astronomer
but what else did people that I did undergraduate physics with become?
What you can see here is a photo from our second year of uni
and what you're gonna see in terms of their jobs
is very up to date
because I Facebooked everyone last night, at the last minute,
and was like...is this still true?
OK, let's have a look, so we have a developer at NICTA
which I think is possibly now Data61
developing cool software and hardware solutions...
an engineering lecturer here at the University of Sydney,
pharmacology postdoc,
a structural engineer,
an embedded analyst
so this is more of the, kind of, data science side of things,
we have a primary teacher,
a general service officer in the Army,
a high school math teacher,
a doctor,
a solicitor who's now overseas in England,
a clinical program associate
which is working with a medical company,
and me who's an astrophysics researcher.
As you can see, I don't think...
none of us have become the same thing
we've all done very different jobs and very different careers
and everyone's having a lot of fun doing the different things
that their physics background has led them to
and their science background as well.
Let's look a little bit more at what kind of things they do.
Mike pointed out, that as a high school math teacher,
you guys probably have a pretty good idea of what he does.
So instead I thought I'd just show you a couple of slides
from some of the things he does with his students.
The reason it's important is with math
we can take these tools that have developed
and try to solve real life problems.
So if a farmer has 18 metres of fencing
how does he build the best pen possible?
So you can frame that in terms of a math question
which is what Mike has done here
and come to a solution and figure out
what is the optimal thing?
How do we maximise the usage of the fencing we have available
and so that's one of the really powerful things of math
and his role is to take what he learned in physics and maths and science
and try to communicate that to the next generation of physicists and mathematicians
which I think is really cool.
Aaron is a solicitor, he told me his official job is senior associate
which apparently means he's old...
I don't know what that means [laughs]
but he works with scientists and engineers, so technical people,
about inventions or innovations that have come out
and tries to figure out should they be patentable or not
and he presents that to the court
so at the moment he is in the UK
working for the same firm he does in Australia
and doing similar things, so that sounds really cool,
and he obviously is using his physics background to make good choices about patents.
Lia is a clinical program associate
we tried to come up with what that is, in short terms,
but it seems to not have an analogy
but what it is, is she works as part of a company
their specific focus is ultrasound technology
and what they're trying to do is come up with ways of preventing infection.
She said one of the really cool things about her job
is that she gets to do lots of different things.
Sometimes she's a scientist using that technical background
to plan clinical studies,
sometimes she's a business person, a market researcher,
trying to figure out the best way for the company to invest in new technologies
and so she really enjoys that diversity that she gets to do
and also helping people.
Benjy is a lecturer, he's in engineering
and his particular focus is on landslides
obviously landslides are a natural disaster and they kill lots of people.
The thing that he said sets landslides apart
is that they're killing more people every year.
So a lot of natural disasters are decreasing in their impact
landslides are increasing
so it's important to understand why
and he also wanted to point out that he gets to go skiing for work
researching snow avalanches.
Phil is an engineer, he's a structural engineer
and he described his job as making sure that buildings don't fall down
which is pretty important.
He came up with this description
so, you know, people can't lift buildings
can you lift a building... really?
I don't think it's about commitment to the gym
[laughs] but that's what he likened it to...
but as part of his job
he gets to work with a lot of different kinds of buildings
and contribute to making them as cool
and as safe as possible.
Recently he's worked with the Sydney Opera House,
Parramatta Primary School
the new design for that
and this photo is him at Vivid
making sure it didn't blow away.
So, in conclusion...
for the bulk of my talk now we're gonna go into question time...
is that, I think if you like science
you should definitely consider taking Year 11 and 12 physics.
There's never gonna be a better time to go that path.
You can come back later but it's really hard
so if you have this inkling
that you want to be part of science
and you want to do physics
then now is a really good time to do it.
Math is going to be part of your life
but it doesn't have to be a bad part of your life.
Math is really cool too.
It can be hard... because sometimes the math you do
likening it to the real world is challenging, right?
We can do really pure mathematics that seems very distant from reality
but really it's just a tool for understanding the world around us
so if you see it that way
it's not that different to physics
and it's really important as well.
So a background in physics, you might not have known,
but it can lead you to a lot of different opportunities.
It's not just a scientist
you're not just in a lab, in a lab coat over a petri dish
there's a lot of different opportunities open to you
depending on your interest
and with that physics background
doors really open so you can go into a wide variety of things.
You can travel around the world
and do a lot of really fun stuff along the way.
So if you are interested in science
do physics
because I really liked that little sign thing...
but also what's really important is that
obviously not all of you are going to become scientists
that's realistic
but hopefully you have an appreciation of science
if you can do physics then you can have
that as part of your tools of looking at the world around you
looking at it critically and logically
but also just follow your passion
so follow your curiosity...
don't think that the decisions you make now define the rest of your life.
It wasn't until Year 12 that I thought
maybe I could be a physicist one day
but even then it wasn't set.
Just do what you're interested in
I think is the most important part
and that will be the best choices that you can make
and that's it, thank you.
...and telescopes, they're pretty cool...
good part of being an astronomer. [laughs]
[Sylvia] Thank you so much Vanessa.
There are a few questions have been asked on Twitter
there's been quite a lot actually
I'm trying to go through it all
and choose a few things.
You've answered a few of the questions as well
that they were streaming through
so I'm just going to choose some of the things
that may not have been covered in the talk.
This is... I think quite a lot of students
like students from Mary Mackillop College
and Maya Caniff and Sarah and Gabby have asked you
who and what actually encouraged you
or inspired you to become an astrophysicist?
[Vanessa] Yeah, that's a really good question
and thank you guys for asking that question.
Like I said, I wanted to be an author
I really liked writing I was going to write children's books.
When I was in Year 11 and 12 I had a really great physics teacher,
Mr Mahony, and he made the subject fun and interesting
so that played a huge role in deciding to do physics at the university level.
At that point I decided I was going to do
kind of a mixed arts and science
because I still enjoyed both of them
and then when I got to university
I met a couple of astronomers
who I still work with now
Tara Murphy and Anne Green
and they were so enthusiastic about astronomy
and so keen to share their knowledge with students and encourage us
that is really had a big influence on deciding to do physics at a higher level.
[Sylvia] That's really good, they're very inspirational people.
[Vanessa] They are.
[Sylvia] I think you, sort of, talked about this in your talk
but just going a little bit further
what are some of the benefits about studying science and astrophysics
like some of the benefits you can get from it?
[Vanessa] Some of the things I covered are...
the benefits I think are...
so one of the things we talk about a lot as astronomers
and educators in science is
we want the world but... Australia as well
to be as science literate as possible.
What that means is
being able to look at... it's problem solving
it's looking at a problem and saying this is the evidence I have
this is what it tells me
not coming in with a particular prejudice or a bias
but actually basing your interpretation on what the evidence is.
So I think that's a huge part
because that's not just applicable to science
it's applicable to your daily life.
When you look at the world around you
when you choose to buy that dress over that dress
because of the different savings
or if you go to the grocery store
and you're trying to figure out is it a good deal or not?
It's always just looking at the world from an interpretive perspective
and just applying that science.
So I think that's probably the biggest thing that comes out of it
and it's not specifically science
but also, like I said, it does open opportunities
you don't have to be a scientist by studying physics or science
but it does give you those skills and the tools
you need to be successful in whatever you do.
[Sylvia off screen] OK. Awesome. So it does give you a lot of tools
but also it gives you skills, right
and critical thinking skills.
[Vanessa] Yeah.
[Sylvia] Now there are a few ones,
actually several ones mentioning astrology
and how is astrology linked to physics?
There are a few of them actually out there
so I thought you might want to just give a bit of clarification perhaps.
[both laughing]
[Vanessa] OK, sometimes I say I'm an astronomer
and they're like, oh my gosh, I'm a Scorpio
what does that mean?
It means very little.
[laughs]
Astrology is a pseudoscience
if you don't know that word,
that's a good research topic for you.
Astronomy is a scientific study
where you try to understand specifically the cosmos
in a scientific way,
astrophysics is with that framework of physics.
Astrology likens the movement of stars and planets to our daily lives
which is a nice thought.
It'd be cool if we could know all the answers to our lives
based on where Jupiter is in relation to Mars
but realistically, I think, going back to that evidence thing
you need to be able to look at it and say
what is the likelihood of me being born in the month of October
what does that have to do with who I become
and I think it's important to see the difference between those things.
They're kind of fun... people want to know the answers to the unknown
but they're not science.
[Sylvia] No. OK. I'm glad you clarified that.
It's quite often... there is actually quite a misconception
that astronomy and astrology is related but...
[Vanessa offscreen] Not related.
[Sylvia] there really isn't.
This is a really nice question by Millee...
what's the most interesting thing that you've ever learnt, as an astrophysicist?
[Vanessa offscreen] Whoa! That's hard.
[laughing]
[Sylvia] We can get back to that if you like.
[Vanessa] No, let me think...
the most interesting thing I've ever learnt...
oh...OK let's come back to that, I'll have to think about that
[Syliva off screen] There's a question from Ruby Tilley
is there another Earth and do you believe in extraterrestrial life?
[Vanessa] That's a good question too.
Is there another Earth...
I mean, if you're saying is there a parallel Earth
then the answer to that, I'd say, is no.
If we're saying instead, are there planets out there that are like Earth
that are habitable, that possibly have life of some form
then I would say yes.
More and more from the studies
that we're seeing from telescopes and satellites like Kepler
that are looking for planets around other stars
is that planets around stars are super common
and even Earth-sized and Earth-like planets
are becoming increasingly common
and so I don't know much about it, but recently,
like today maybe, they released a press release
saying that they'd found some more Earth-like planets around a star
and if you take into account
how many stars there are in our galaxy alone
and the conditions that produce life
they're not that constraining
then I think it's likely that there's life out there.
There's a lot of problems with...
for example, the light distance between us and other stars
we're not going to call up the aliens and talk to them
and also life develops in different ways.
If life was on a planet on the other side of our galaxy
would it look anything like us?
Would it broadcast in radio waves?
Would it communicate in the ways we think it would?
So there's projects at the moment like Breakthrough Listen and Breakthrough Starshot
which are really trying to get at this question.
Breakthrough Listen involves some Australian telescopes
and what they're going to do is do a systematic search
supported by Yuri Milner and other people
to try and figure out can we find life near to us, in our galaxy?
If you think about how many galaxies there are
it'd be crazy for us to be the only ones.
[Sylvia] Yeah, the Universe is actually really huge so
it really makes sense though, it does,
if you think about it in terms of just numbers.
[Sylvia] I think you've mentioned this before but, just again,
if you weren't an astrophysicist, yeah,
then what other career path would you have been doing?
Just out of curiosity.
[Vanessa] That's a good question.
If we're being honest, I still don't know what I want to be
because it's still kind of a work in progress.
I mean a writer would have been fun.
[Sylvia] Because you said about a picture book?
[Vanessa] Children's books
I had it all planned out there was gonna be a 10 book series...
[Sylvia] You never know you might be doing that later in life.
[laughs]
[Vanessa] Yeah maybe...
For me, what's really exciting about what we do as astronomers
is being paid to be curious about the world and explore data.
I really like data and playing with it
and seeing what it can tell you
so I'd probably be in something similarly kind of technical and technological
that involved trying to see what the world around us is telling us
the kind of data, but I wanted to be a paleontologist...
I wanted to be a....what else...
an actor for about half a year
[Sylvia] Awesome
[both laughing]
[Vanessa] Then I realised I couldn't act, so that was a bad idea
[Sylvia] It's actually quite a hard thing to do - acting
[Vanessa] Yeah, it is
[Sylvia] in front of a camera particularly
[Vanessa] and Japanese... one of my other majors was Japanese
so for a long time I used to tell people that I would be a physicist in Japan
because that was the logical extension of what my undergrad had been
but you know, you never know...
[Sylvia] You never know, you might actually go there after all
and polish up your Japanese a little bit.
There's also been quite a lot of questions about space travel.
[Vanessa] OK
[Sylvia] One of the questions asked by again Gabriel and Sarah
but also Callum Wood, as well,
first of all... if you had a chance, would you travel into Space?
[Vanessa] Yes, so I think it'd be really cool.
I think at the moment it's very difficult
to be an astronaut because it's so competitive
and it's really not a part of our lives yet
I'd like to see it become that.
[Sylvia] That will actually link to Callum's...
Callum said, do you see Australia either joining the European Space Agency
or working on our own Space program in the future?
So that was sort of linked as well.
[Vanessa] Obviously we don't have much of a Space industry at the moment
but we do have a lot of people working to make that happen.
We have people doing cube satellites and also just promoting the Space industry...
hot air balloon telescopes and things like.
So there is a lot of potential for Australia to grow in this area.
I went to a talk recently which was really cool, it was like
opal treasure hunting combined with Space
and what it was... it was a geologist who was studying opals
and the geology of where opals are
why are they so common in Australia?
He's based here at the University of Sydney
and what he found was actually that it was to do with the conditions
so we had this big lake that came into Australia
we had geological conditions that match that
but what he likened it to was Mars.
So actually Mars has similar geological conditions to Australia
so in some ways, the centre of the Australian desert
is very similar to Mars terrain.
So that's kind of cool, we should utilise that...
but if I could Space travel, like I said at the start of my talk,
I would go to Saturn's moon, probably Mimas,
which is one of the closest in ones
because I think it would be so cool to be able to stand there
and just see Saturn, right, in the sky
that would just be crazy
and if I could do that in a reasonable time frame and then come back to Earth
[Sylvia laughing off screen]
that would also be convenient.
[Sylvia off screen] So Mars 1 is not an option for you at all, is it...
just colonising somewhere?
[Sylvia laughing]
[Vanessa] I kind of don't like the colour red enough...
I like oxygen a lot too.
[Sylvia laughing] Oh right...
[Vanessa] There are lots of people that are really excited
about the prospects of going to Mars
so I think that'll be exciting
hopefully it will happen in the next 20 to 30 years.
[Sylvia] Yeah, it's getting closer my understanding is.
OK this one question from Steven
being an astrophysicist, do you think you'll ever head into outer Space
to conduct more in-depth research?
Right...yeah so that is a possibility
so in terms of... if people are thinking about pathways to becoming an astronaut
you can... obviously there's been the military pathway
which has been the majority for a long time
so having the training in the Air Force or the Navy
mostly Air Force, isn't it?
[Sylvia] It's Air Force, yeah
[Vanessa] If you have that background
but also they do need scientists up there
they need people to...for example on the ISS
they send scientists up there to conduct the research experiments.
So I think, yes, there is a lot of potential
if you're interested in being an astronaut
then having the physics or engineering background will really help
because you can also... as well as having that
you can frame it... you can do extra things that make you more...
what's the word... not competitive...
more applicable... more suited to be an astronaut.
So you can kind of build that around
but even then it is really competitive
although that could change hopefully in the next 20 years as we have more...
[Sylvia off screen] Space programs are just coming up from different countries now...
[Vanessa] and companies as well
[Sylvia off screen] Exactly, privatised companies
so it's not just NASA anymore, it's everyone else as well
we can only hope, right?
[Vanessa] Yeah, it'd be cool.
[Sylvia] It's very exciting times actually that we live in.
Going back to that question again about
what's the most exciting thing that you've learnt
or that you've encounter as an astrophysicist?
There were two people who asked that question.
[Vanessa] That's so hard. Oh my god!
[Sylvia] Sophie and...
[Vanessa] What's the most exciting thing...oh my gosh...
there's so many fun and exciting things
[Sylvia] and Millee asked the question.
Just one thing that you can think of, out of the blue... just your head [clicks fingers, claps hands]
[Vanessa] OK obviously one thing that is very cool
is the fairly recent discovery of gravitational waves
[Sylvia] Yes
[Vanessa] and the reason that's so cool
is because it took 100 years for our technology to catch up
to the level, where a predication made could be verified
and obviously science sometimes happens serendipitously
we explore the world around us
and we find out cool things, like penicillin, along the way
but sometimes, you know, there are really clever people
who can take this physical model and say look, I predict this will happen
and Einstein was one of those people and he was able to say
look, gravitational wave should exist
it's very hard to detect them but one day people might
and I think maybe he kind of gave up on it
I'm not sure if he ever thought it was going to be technically feasible.
[Sylvia off screen] Yeah, that's true
[Vanessa] So I think the fact that they were able to do
this super hard experiment
and actually prove that two black holes had smashed together so far away
that is very exciting and very cool.
[Sylvia] Yeah it is probably the most important discovery made this year if not the century
[Vanessa] Oh yeah, it's huge
[both laughing]
[Sylvia] Noble Prize most likely...
We got one last question and I chose it as a very fitting one by Mary
what is one thing that you would like to say to young people
who love science but aren't confident enough to study physics in the future?
[Vanessa] OK, so I'll look at the camera
because you guys have asked that question.
If you love science and you want to do physics, then do it.
Don't let anyone who says you can't do it
or any results that you have
that make you think you can't do it, stop you.
If you really want something then just keep going.
A lot of it is practice, like I said,
it's learning how to fail and be OK with that
and take that failure and learn for the next time.
So if you really do love science then go for it
and whatever your passion is, whatever your curiosity
just follow that and I think you'll be pretty cool outcome.
[Sylvia off screen] Right, thank you so much for your talk.
[Vanessa] Thank you guys for tuning in.
[Sylvia] Thank you!
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