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The study, published in Publications of the Astronomical Society of Australia on Monday, details a search for extraterrestrial intelligence (SETI) using the Murchison Widefield Array (MWA), a collection of 4096 antennas planted in the red soil of Western Australia that detects radio signals from space. "They are little spider-like antennas that sit on the ground," explains Chenoa Tremblay, co-author on the study and astrophysicist with CSIRO, an Australian government scientific research organization. Tremblay and co-author Stephen Tingay, from the International Centre for Radio Astronomy Research, used the MWA to listen out for "technosignatures," or evidence of alien technology, in a...

Hundreds of hidden nearby galaxies have been studied for the first time, shedding light on a mysterious gravitational anomaly dubbed the Great Attractor. Despite being just 250 million light years from Earth—very close in astronomical terms—the new galaxies had been hidden from view until now by our own galaxy, the Milky Way. Using CSIRO’s Parkes radio telescope equipped with an innovative receiver, an international team of scientists were able to see through the stars and dust of the Milky Way, into a previously unexplored region of space. The discovery may help to explain the Great Attractor region, which appears to...

Explanation: Sweeping quickly through southern skies on March 5, Comet PanSTARRS (C/2011 L4) follows the Sun toward the western horizon in this twilight scene. In the foreground is Australia's CSIRO Parkes Radio Telescope, a 64 meter wide steerable dish that is no stranger to the space age exploration of comets. In March of 1986 the Parkes dish tracked ESA's Giotto spacecraft as it flew by Comet Halley and received the first ever closeup images of Halley's nucleus. At naked-eye visibility, Comet PanSTARRS made its closest approach to planet Earth on March 5. Its closest approach to the Sun will be...

A re-analysis of radio telescope observations from three countries has yielded a surprising result: nearby galaxies harbour one-third more hydrogen than had previously been estimated. While nothing like enough matter to solve physics’ “dark matter” problem, the work by CSIRO astronomer Dr Robert Braun (chief scientist at the agency’s Astronomy and Space Science division in Sydney) also helps explain why the rate of star formation has slowed down. While there’s more hydrogen than astronomers had thought, its distribution makes star formation more difficult. Andromeda – the galaxy headed for a catastrophic collision with our own in about four billion years...

SINGAPORE (Reuters) – Australia's huge cattle herd in the north might be burping less planet-warming methane emissions than thought, a study released on Friday shows, suggesting the cows are more climate friendly. Cattle, sheep and other ruminant livestock produce large amounts of methane, which is about 20 times more powerful at trapping heat than carbon dioxide. One cow can produce about 1.5 tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions a year. Half of New Zealand's greenhouse gas emissions come from agriculture and most of that is from sheep and cattle. Most of the cattle and sheep emissions are, contrary to popular belief,...

A SENIOR CSIRO environmental economist has gone public to accuse the science body of trying to gag his report attacking the Federal Government's climate change policies. The paper, by Clive Spash, criticises the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme and argues that direct legislation or a tax on carbon is needed... Dr. Spash also wrote that the economic theory underpinning emissions trading schemes was far removed from the reality ... He said trading schemes were ineffective ... He claims the CSIRO had tried to block the publication of the report, despite it being internationally peer reviewed and accepted by the journal New...

Editorial: Strange weather is situation normal December 29, 2006 Summer snow is no tipping point for climate change CSIRO research fellow Barrie Hunt has done everyone a service by blowing the whistle on the pessimistic hand-wringing that accompanies too much of the discussion on climate change and its relationship to the drought now gripping southeast Australia. As the retired head of the CSIRO's climate modelling program, Mr Hunt says there is nothing historically unusual about Australia's predicament, contrary to much of today's political blather. According to the CSIRO's model of 10,000 years of natural climate variability, the drought can be...

SYDNEY, Australia - Hotter temperatures and higher sea levels could devastate Asian economies, displace millions of people and put millions more at risk from infectious disease, according to a climate change report released Monday. Global temperatures will rise by up to 4 degrees by 2030, particularly in the arid regions of northern Pakistan, India and China, predicted the report, conducted by Australia's main research agency, the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization. It said there is "little room for optimism" about the effects of climate change in the Asia-Pacific region unless governments take immediate action to curb carbon dioxide emissions....