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Quasars are the earliest objects known to exist. We examine their origin in the context of popular models for structure formation in the universe. We show that seeds for quasar black holes could have originated from the initial cosmological…
We discuss the potential cosmological role of gravitational wave astronomy as a probe of the very early universe. The next generation of detectors - now in production - may be able to observe a stochastic background of gravitational waves…
The Laser Interferometer Space Antenna (LISA) will be a transformative experiment for gravitational wave astronomy, and, as such, it will offer unique opportunities to address many key astrophysical questions in a completely novel way. The…
One century ago Viktor Hess carried out several balloon flights that led him to conclude that the penetrating radiation responsible for the discharge of electroscopes was of extraterrestrial origin. One century from the discovery of this…
The intergalactic medium - the cosmic gas that fills the great spaces between the galaxies - is affected by processes ranging from quantum fluctuations in the very early universe to radiative emission from newly-formed stars. This gives the…
Line-intensity mapping (LIM) is an emerging approach to survey the Universe, using relatively low-aperture instruments to scan large portions of the sky and collect the total spectral-line emission from galaxies and the intergalactic…
Developments in neutrino astronomy have been to a great extent motivated by the search for the sources of the cosmic rays, leading at a very early stage to the concept of a cubic kilometer neutrino detector. Almost four decades later such…
Continuum gamma-ray emission produced by interactions of cosmic rays with interstellar matter and radiation fields is a probe of non-thermal particle populations in galaxies. After decades of continuous improvements in experimental…
Binary stars are crucial laboratories for stellar physics, so have been photometric targets for space missions beginning with the very first orbiting telescope (OAO-2) launched in 1968. This review traces the binary stars observed and the…
The Australian Space Eye is a proposed astronomical telescope based on a 6U CubeSat platform. The Space Eye will exploit the low level of systematic errors achievable with a small space based telescope to enable high accuracy measurements…
Observational astrophysics uses sophisticated technology to collect and measure electromagnetic and other radiation from beyond the Earth. Modern observatories produce large, complex datasets and extracting the maximum possible information…
Ultra-high energy cosmic rays (UHECRs) have been studied with the data of the Pierre Auger Observatory for more than fifteen years. An essential feature of the Observatory is its hybrid design: UHECRs are detected through the observation of…
Imaging the Universe during the first hundreds of millions of years remains one of the exciting challenges facing modern cosmology. Observations of the redshifted 21 cm line of atomic hydrogen offer the potential of opening a new window…
The Hubble Space Telescope (HST), in its thirteen years of operation, has allowed us to observe properties of the universe humans have been able, until very recently, to probe only with their thoughts. This review presents a brief summary…
The next major advancement in astronomy and cosmology will be driven by deep observations using very sensitive telescopes with high spatial and spectral resolution capabilities. An international consortium of astronomers, including Indian…
The Single Aperture Far-InfraRed (SAFIR) Observatory's science goals are driven by the fact that the earliest stages of almost all phenomena in the universe are shrouded in absorption by and emission from cool dust and gas that emits…
To study large-scale structure in the Universe a full census of the contents are required. This is even more important when the processes of galaxy formation are being investigated. In the last year the population of distant galaxies that…
Astronomy provides a laboratory for extreme physics, a window into environments at extremes of distance, temperature and density that often can't be reproduced in Earth laboratories, or at least not right away. A surprising amount of the…
One of the most exciting scientific challenges is to detect Earth-like planets in the habitable zones of other stars in the galaxy and search for evidence of life. The ability to observe and characterise dozens of potentially Earth-like…
Physicists have pondered the origin of cosmic rays for over a hundred years. However the last few years have seen an upsurge in the observation, progress in the theory and a genuine increase in the importance attached to the topic due to…