by Flornes Yuen (CASS)

If you’ve ever wondered what the ASKAP spectrum looks like, Vanessa Moss aka @cosmicpudding has the answer. When printed out, the 300 MHZ instantaneous spectrum (in Band 1, towards PKS 1740-517) is 10 m long and traces across some 3 billion years of cosmic history. Vanessa printed this out on to 36 pages of A4 paper to demonstrate the Big Data aspect of ASKAP, as part of a panel about developing Australia’s national STEM talent for National Science Week and the Sydney Science Festival. Here she is showing how distant radio galaxies act like a bright flashlight to illuminate the shadows of hydrogen in front of them.

You can read more about Vanessa and her research in this SMH profile .