MORE THAN 100 SCIENTISTS ARE COLLABORATING ON THE GALAH PROJECT, BASED AT UNIVERSITIES IN AUSTRALIA, NEW ZEALAND, ITALY, UK, SLOVENIA, US, HUNGARY, SWEDEN, THE NETHERLANDS, AND GERMANY.
HUGE NEW DATASET REVEALS CHEMICAL DATA ON 600,000 STARS Researchers are excited by the astronomical questions that can nowbe answered following the release of ‘GALAH DR3’, the largest set of stellar chemical data ever compiled. The data, based on over 30million individual measurements taken over several years, was gathered by an Australian-led team of astronomers, including researchers fromThe University of NewSouthWales (UNSWSydney) and the ARC Centre of Excellence for All SkyAstrophysics in 3 Dimensions (ASTRO 3D), using the Anglo Australian Telescope (AAT) at Siding Spring Observatory in rural New SouthWales. The release is the third from the Galactic Archaeologywith HERMES (GALAH) project, which aims to investigate this history of star formation, chemical enrichment and galaxy mergers in the MilkyWay. The newdata measures 29 chemical elements in 600,000 stars and takes the project closer to meeting its goal of surveying one million. ‘Making large datasets like GALAH DR3 widely available is really important for astronomical research,’ explains Associate Professor Sarah Martell, who is a former ARC Discovery Early Career Researcher Award (DECRA) recipient fromUNSWand an affiliate member of ASTRO 3D. ‘Since the start of the GALAH project, we have focused on building a dataset that can answer our questions about the history of the MilkyWay, and also many others. I'm excited to see what our international colleagues will dowith GALAH DR3.’ The GALAH project’s previous data release – known as DR2 – took place in 2018. It has fuelled a raft of significant discoveries regarding the evolution of the MilkyWay, the properties of exo-planets, and hidden star clusters. The ARC Centre of Excellence for All SkyAstrophysics in 3 Dimensions is administered by The Australian National University.
Day and night at the Anglo Australian Telescope, used to conduct the star survey at Siding Spring in rural New South Wales. Credit: Dr Ángel R. López-Sánchez/Australian Astronomical Optics/ Macquarie University/ASTRO 3D.
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DISCOVERY AND FUNDAMENTAL RESEARCH
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