Science from the Parkes telescope

Below is some of the most notable work done with the Parkes telescope over the last four decades. The years given are those in which the observations were made, unless otherwise noted.

1962

Parkes is used for the first time to receive signals from a space mission, Mariner II.

1962

Researchers using Parkes find that our Galaxy has a magnetic field, a million times weaker than Earth’s.

1963 [publication date]
An X-ray image of quasar 3C 273 and the jet emerging from it. Credit: NASA/CXC

Astronomers use Parkes to determine the position of quasar 3C 273, helping to establish that quasars are extragalactic objects.

1962

Astronomers using Parkes find strong linear polarisation in the radio emission from the galaxy Centaurus A. This indicates which process is producing the emission.

1964

Publication of the first results of Parkes’ first survey to find and catalogue cosmic radio sources.

1968

Astronomers using Parkes detect pulsar signals, just weeks after UK researchers announce the discovery of pulsars.

1969

Parkes maps the Galaxy. Work in the ’50s had shown that the Galaxy has spiral arms. Parkes helped refine the picture by mapping the Galaxy’s main constituent, neutral (that is, unionised) hydrogen gas. Two Parkes surveys published in 1969 were combined with data from the Northern Hemisphere to give a new picture of the distribution and motion of neutral hydrogen gas in the Galaxy.

1969

Parkes’ first observations using the technique of Very Long Baseline Interferometry (VLBI). Parkes worked with telescopes at Owens Valley, California.

1969

Parkes receives television signals from the Apollo 11 Moon landing and relays them to a worldwide audience of 600 million.

1971

Parkes discovers its first interstellar molecule, HCHS (thioformaldehyde). This is the first interstellar molecule discovered by a group outside the USA. Parkes goes on to discover several other molecules in space.

1971

Parkes starts a new survey at a frequency of 2.7 GHz, which finds many unusual new quasars.

1972

Parkes is used in the first general Southern Hemisphere VLBI (Very Long Baseline Inteferometry) experiment.

1973
A recent image made with the Parkes telescope of the Large and Small MagellanicClouds, and the stream of gas flowing from them – the Magellanic Stream.The Large Magellanic Cloud is the blue mass towards the upper left; the Small Cloud is below, to the right.

Parkes discovers the Magellanic Stream, a long trail of hydrogen gas flowing from two small neighbouring galaxies called the Large and Small Magellanic Clouds.

1970s

Parkes is a receiving station for NASA's Apollo 12, 14, 15 and 17 missions, and is called in to help during the Apollo 13 emergency.

1982

A quasar called PKS 2000-330, an object in the Parkes radio catalogue, was found to have a redshift of 3.78, making it the most distant object in the Universe then known.

1982

Parkes is used in the first VLBI (Very Long Baseline Interferometry) imaging experiment.

1982

Parkes finds the first pulsar outside our Galaxy, in the small neighbouring galaxy called the Large Magellanic Cloud.

1986
The Voyager II spacecraft. Image: JPL

Parkes receives signals from NASA’s Voyager II spacecraft as it flies past Uranus.

1986
Comet Halley.
Credit: Mount Wilson Observatory

Parkes receives signals from ESA’s Giotto spacecraft as it encounters Comet Halley.

1989
Neptune, imaged by Voyager II. Credit: JPL/NASA

Parkes receives signals from NASA’s Voyager II spacecraft as it flies past Neptune.

1991

Parkes finds ten millisecond (very fast) pulsars in 47 Tucanae, a globular cluster (a ball of about a million stars on the outskirts of our Galaxy). The discovery doubles the known number of these exotic objects.

1991 [publication]
The radio Einstein Ring PKS 1830-211

A network of telescopes including Parkes identifies and images the strongest known radio Einstein Ring, PKS 1830-211. Follow-up observations in 1995 show the ring to be an extremely unusual object: a compound gravitational lens, with two foreground objects at different distances.

The ring includes two distinct images of the core of the background quasar: the light paths giving rise to these differ in length. In 1998 the time delay between the two light curves was used to calculate the Hubble constant. The value given by this method is independent of the estimates based on distance measurements.

1994

Parkes observes the close encounter of pulsar B1259-63 and its companion star, SS2883. The encounter slowed the pulsar’s pulse rate: this is the first time this effect, long predicted, had been seen in a radio pulsar.

1995

Researchers from the US-based SETI Institute use Parkes for six months to look at 200 nearby stars for signals from possible extraterrestrial civilisations. This was the first phase of “Project Phoenix”, the biggest SETI (search for extraterrestial intelligence) project up to that time.

1996-1997
Cloud bands on Jupiter, imaged by the Galileo spacecraft. Image: JPL/NASA

Parkes supports NASA by receiving data from the Galileo spacecraft, sent to investigate Jupiter and its moons, for 13 months.

1997

Using the technique of VLBI (Very Long Baseline Interferometry), a network of telescopes including Parkes employs the Vela supernova remnant as a ‘magnifying glass’ to image the Vela pulsar to an angular resolution of 10 nanoarcseconds. This the first image of a pulsar’s radiosphere, and probably the highest-resolution astronomical image ever made.

1997
The multibeam receiver system on the edge of the Parkes telescope prior to installation. Photo: CSIRO

A world-leading 'multibeam receiver system', which allows the telescope to see 13 spots on the sky at once, is installed on the Parkes telescope.
The receiver system is used to survey the sky for neutral hydrogen gas–the raw material from which stars are made. These surveys detect many galaxies and gas clouds–some previously unknown–and produce the first picture of the distribution of mass in the local universe that does not rely, directly or indirectly, on the presence of stars. Findings made with the multibeam receiver system include:

1998

A team using Parkes finds the thousandth pulsar known to science. (Parkes has found more pulsars than any other telescope.)

1998-2003

The Southern Galactic Plane Survey, being done with Parkes, produces a detailed picture of the Southern Galactic Plane, leading to the identification of a new spiral arm in our Galaxy.

1999

Astronomers using Parkes find the pulsar J2144-3933. This pulsar, which spins only once every eight seconds, defied existing theories on the upper limit for pulsar periods.

2001

Astronomers using Parkes find a radio pulsar with a companion at least 11 times the mass of the Sun–the most massive pulsar companion known. The companion is probably a massive late-type (red) star.

2001

Astronomers using Parkes find 30 young, energetic pulsars that may be the counterparts of otherwise unidentified gamma-ray sources in our Galaxy.

2001

Parkes is used for an exquisitely sensitive test of Einstein’s general theory of relativity.

2002
An artist's impression of the millisecond pulsar J1740-5340 and its bloated red companion star. The pulsar is shown in blue, emitting two beams of radio waves. Image: European Space Agency and Francesco Ferraro (Bologna Astronomical Observatory)

Using the Hubble Space Telescope and Parkes, astronomers find never-before-seen binary system: a super-fast spinning pulsar whose gravity has deformed its companion star into a giant red teardrop. We may be seeing the system in a fleeting phase of its life - the point at which a new millisecond pulsar has just been fully 'spun up' by its companion star.

2003
An artist's impression of the double pulsar system, J0737-3039. Credit: John Rowe Animations

Astronomers using Parkes discover the first known double pulsar system. This leads them to revise the rate at which neutron stars coalesce, placing it about six times higher than previously thought. The higher rate improves the chances of gravity-wave detectors detecting such events. The pulsar system will also allow subtle tests of General Relativity and, because one pulsar eclipses the other, give astrononmers the chance to investigate a pulsar’s outer atmosphere.