On the origins of Fast Radio Bursts and perytons: a statement

Earlier this year, we issued a press release for the publication by our PhD student Emily Petroff at Swinburne University and her supervisors and colleagues, reporting the first real-time observation of a Fast Radio Burst (FRB). This paper added to a growing body of...

Why supernovae are brighter in old massive galaxies

Type Ia supernovae (SNe Ia) are critical tools for measuring the contents of our Universe, but recent studies found their cosmological brightness showed a bias with respect to the environment in which they are found:   SNe Ia in massive, old, metal-rich galaxies are...

At least a quarter of supernovae eject sub-Chandrasekhar masses

Despite their ongoing use as tools for cosmology, type Ia supernovae (SNe Ia) are still not fully understood physically.  In the classic scenario, a white dwarf and a larger star orbit each other, with the white dwarf gradually accreting material from its companion...

Clues to origin of luminous supernovae may lie in ultraviolet

The widespread use of type Ia supernovae (SNe Ia) in cosmology, as one of the farthest rungs in the extragalactic distance ladder and as tools to study dark energy, depends on the accuracy with which their luminosity can be measured. The classic luminosity calibration...

Bright Active Galactic Nuclei cause high velocity ionised wind

At the centre of most (if not all) galaxies lies a supermassive black hole. In in most cases, as in our own galaxy, it is is dormant. This means that it is not currently accreting matter. However, in some galaxies it is active: it is accreting matter and, as a result,...