VIDEO: Revolutionising our knowledge of the universe

TOM HARTLEY, REPORTER: You are joining me on a journey deep, and I mean deep into the Australian outback, on Wajarri country. This might sound a little far-fetched but we are heading to see a time machine. 

Our destination is in an arid, ancient part of the country — a designated ‘Radio Quiet Zone’.

If you take enough right turns, eventually something other-worldly appears on the horizon.

Woah, look at that dish dance. 

Spread over 3,400 square kilometres, this is the CSIRO Murchison Radio-Astronomy Observatory, ‘Inyarrimanha Ilgari Bundara.’

REBECCA WHEADON, CSIRO OBSERVATORY MANAGER:  Inyarrimanha Ilgari Bundara is actually Wajarri language for ‘sharing the skies and stars’, so for us it’s been a really important demonstration and beautiful opportunity to share our relationship and Wajarri language with the world. 

TOM HARTLEY:  The Observatory is already home to two world-class telescopes.

The most conspicuous is called ‘ASKAP’ - a radio telescope with 36 dishes operating as one.

BRETT HISCOCK, ASKAP PRINCIPAL ENGINEER:  It’s a one-off, it is a world first in what it actually does. 

TOM HARTLEY:  Are you able to try to explain to me, in simple terms, what a radio telescope does, how it works? 

BRETT HISCOCK:  It’s not something that you look through. It’s using radio waves that’s coming from objects like black holes or just gases in space are emitting radio waves, and we’re collecting those radio waves and then processing that information to produce contour maps that scientists will study and try to understand the universe. 

We discovered a million new galaxies.   

TOM HARTLEY:  The other telescope currently operating here is the ‘Murchison Widefield Array’, composed of 4,000 spider-like antennas.

ASSOC. PROF. NATASHA HURLEY-WALKER, ASTRONOMER:  They’re looking at things that are millions to billions of light years away. 

We’re seeing all of cosmic history condensed into a single snapshot which we can then unpick and work out the history of the universe. 

TOM HARTLEY:  With this telescope, astronomer Natasha Hurley-Walker observed the remnants of a supernova explosion that took place thousands of years ago.

NATASHA HURLEY-WALKER: I just think it’s so wonderful to have that connection with people who were living here and doing astronomy 9,000 years ago. 

TOM HARTLEY:  The people Natasha’s referring to are the Wajarri Yamaji - among the world’s oldest astronomers and the traditional landowners and native titleholders for as far as the eye can see. 

And if you think this is incredible, wait until that sun dips beneath the horizon. That's when this place comes alive, and you get a true sense of why they chose this particular place to observe deep space.

Finally, I get a glimpse of the time machine I really came here to see - a massive radio telescope called ‘SKA-Low’ revealed at sunrise. 

DR SARAH PEARCE, SKA-LOW TELESCOPE DIRECTOR:   What we’re hoping to do with this telescope is to map the universe, help us understand the birth and death of those first stars and galaxies and how the universe evolved.

TOM HARTLEY:  This telescope will complement another in South Africa’s Karoo region - 197 dish antennas called SKA-Mid.

SARAH PEARCE:   If there is intelligent life in a different star system near us, for the very first time we would be able to answer that kind of question - are we alone in the universe? One of the biggest questions that humanity has ever posed. 

TOM HARTLEY:  Before they can answer those big questions, they must first build the telescope - 131,072 Christmas tree-shaped antennas will map the sky constructed mostly by a Wajarri workforce.

ZAMARN HOWARD, SKA-LOW FIELD TECHNICIAN:  We’ve completed about five stations worth, which have 256 on each station. 

Just being out on country, working with family and friends, it’s pretty cool and chill.

TOM HARTLEY:  Only 130,000 to go.

Also on the to-do list, is another monumental task and that’s supplying power to and transferring data from all of these antennas and to do that they’ve got about 1000 kilometres of this cable, lots of it running underground. That’s a huge number, equivalent to around one million steps. 

A bank of supercomputers on and off site will help process the data. 

This is what the core looks like now - vast red earth with mesh laid, ready for the antennas. 

Before all this began, years of negotiations and land surveys took place to ensure the telescope wouldn’t encroach on any cultural landmarks.

GAIL SIMPSON, WAJARRI WOMAN: The connecting back to land is one of the things that is great, but doing the heritage surveys and doing all the heritage protecting out there is one of the boss things going hey, it’s the best partnership we’ve got.

TIM AYRES:  For Lockie Ronan working on country’s opened his eyes to future job opportunities and his ancestral past.

LOCKIE RONAN, SKA-LOW FIELD TECHNICIAN:  My grandparents grew up around here, grandfather was born on Woolleen Station, so yeah, there’s a cultural imprints out here with my ancestors. 

TIM AYRES:  While filming with Lockie, he found out one of the dishes nearby was actually named after his grandfather, who was a prominent member of the community. 

We tagged along as he saw it for the first time.

LOCKIE RONAN:  Yeah, that’s his nickname. That's awesome. 

It’s something I can’t really explain but it’s filled my heart some sort of way. 

TOM HARTLEY:  In the glow of the campfire, the link between past and present becomes clear. Lockie under the same stars his ancestors observed thousands of years ago.

LOCKIE RONAN:  How involved my grandfather was in the community makes me want to push younger Indigenous kids to come out, reconnect with culture and hopefully experience the same feelings I get to feel today. Yeah it’s beyond stoked, it’s such a beautiful feeling. It's hard to even put into words. 

I’m excited to see where it goes from here.