UniSQ to host a Festival for Astronomy and Space
UniSQ has a long history in astronomy education, outreach and research. It received a significant Australian Research Council Discovery Projects scheme grant to establish MINERVA-Australis at Mount Kent Observatory. Since 2019 UniSQ has been doing follow up work for NASA in confirming the existence of planets around other stars and learning more about them. In 2022 UniSQ was announced as a successful recipient under the Australian Government’s $362 million Trailblazer Universities initiative, giving the green light to the University of Southern Queensland-led ‘Innovative Launch, Automation, Novel Materials, Communications and Hypersonics (iLAuNCH) Hub’. The hub will work with industry to create sovereign research, equipment and infrastructure in support of rocket manufacturing, rocket launch and in-space hardware such as satellites, communications and sensors.
Annually until 2019, the University hosted a popular ‘astronomy festival’ which featured world-leading astronomers who took the public on a journey through the latest developments and themes in astronomy. After a necessary break due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the astronomy festival is on again in early October 2022. Everyone is invited to join us in person at the Toowoomba campus for a range of activities including presentations, a Curious Kids session, and even a musical concert while looking at the stars! The presentations will also be available online.
So mark your diary for these events. More detail on registering for the activities will be available closer to the time on the UniSQ Events page and the Astrophysics’ page.
- Thursday, 6 October 2022: 6pm - Understanding other worlds – the latest on Exoplanets
- Friday, 7 October 2022: 6pm - Space Archaeology
- Saturday, 8 October 2022: 4pm - Curious Kids Astronomy; 7pm - Music and the Stars
Mt Kent Observatory, Queensland, Australia