Students Meet Space Scientists

Year 13 Earth and Space Science students had the chance to interview three radio astronomers at Warkworth Observatory on Thursday 10 March via Zoom.

It was a great session with these enthusiastic experts – who included highly respected academics Tim Natusch and Willem van Straten from the Institute for Radio Astronomy and Space Research at AUT – teaching us how radio astronomy is used to study objects like planets, stars, comets, and asteroids in our solar system.

Radio astronomy makes use of radio waves as emitted by stars and can help us find new extrasolar planets and moons, as well as enabling us to “see” hydrogen gas clouds around galaxies. These are not visible to the naked eye.

The concepts discussed will be very useful to students in their upcoming astrobiology internal assessment.

Sandy Collier, Earth and Space Science Teacher