About
Space and astronomy
CSIRO operates a number of astronomy facilities. These include the Australia Telescope National Facility (ATNF), which includes Murriyang, the Parkes radio telescope and ASKAP, in Western Australia, the Canberra Deep Space Communication Centre, CDSCC, the CSIRO Centre for Earth Observation and the New Norcia Deep Space Antenna plus the space research program.
Our astronomers study cosmic objects, such as galaxies, gas clouds and pulsars, using our own radio telescopes and other instruments to build a deeper understanding of the Universe.
Learn more about space and astronomy
PULSE@Parkes
Visualisation of a pulsar. Credit: Bill Saxton, NRAO/AUI/NSF
PULSE@Parkes is a free educational program for students in years 10 – 12 run by CSIRO. It gives students the opportunity to use Murriyang, the iconic 64m Parkes radio telescope, live and remotely.
Using Parkes remotely but live, students observe pulsars, gather data then analyse it using an online module. The data is freely and publicly available, either via a simple database for students or in professional format via the CSIRO Data Access Portal. It can be used for open-ended student investigations.
An intrinsic and valuable part of the program is the interactions students have with our professional astronomers whilst observing. Students can ask questions about pulsars, astronomy, science careers and study options.
The program launched in December 2007. Since then over 2,500 students from more than 250 schools have participated in it. Sessions have reached schools in every state and territory across Australia and many other countries.
Meet our team
Robert Hollow
Robert is the Education Manager and Student Coordinator for space & astronomy. He is the Education Lead and Program Coordinator for PULSE@Parkes.
George Hobbs
Dr George Hobbs, a pulsar expert, is a senior research scientist and Group Leader in space & astronomy. George is the Science Lead for PULSE@Parkes.
Andrew Zic
Dr Andrew Zic is an Impossible Without You fellow at CSIRO. He studies how various sources of bias might affect our search for the gravitational wave background with pulsar timing arrays.
Dilpreet Kaur
Dr Dilpreet Kaur is postdoctoral fellow at CSIRO who studies applications of pulsars to study the interstellar medium, space weather, for cryptography and space navigation.
Marcus Lower
Dr Marcus Lower is a postdoctoral fellow in Space & Astronomy. They study the imprints that magnetic fields and the interstellar medium leave on radio waves emitted by young pulsars.
Wenhua Ling
Dr Wenhua Ling is an R+ CSIRO Postdoctoral Fellow in Practical Applications of Pulsars. She studies how to use pulsars to extract random numbers.
Jane Kaczmarek
Dr Jane Kaczmarek is the Senior System Scientist at Murriyang/Parkes telescope. Having worked at radio telescopes for the past 6 years, she loves to enable new and exciting astronomy research.
Rami Mandow
Rami is a PhD student with Macquarie University and CSIRO, studying pulsar timing and has spent many hours observing with the Parkes radio telescope.
Lawrence Toomey
Lawrence Toomey is responsible for our Parkes data archiving and software support.
Contact us
Email the PULSE@Parkes Team
Call us: 02 9372 4247
Program Coordinator: Robert Hollow (email robert.hollow(at)csiro.au)