On the trail of space exploration history in Australia, from Neil Armstrong’s ‘one small step’ to Aboriginal astronomy and Uranus’ rings
- Australia’s clear skies and low population make it ideal for space observatories, and its communications stations played a part in space exploration history
- Tourists can visit the Perth Observatory where they discovered Uranus’ rings, and experience the ‘sky stories’ of Aboriginals, Australia’s first astronomers
In the densely forested hills that overlook Perth, Western Australia, a cluster of white domes contrasts starkly with the city’s famously blue skies.
A rumble rolls through this idyllic setting, and the roof of one of the domes cracks open, allowing the telescope within to be trained on the midday sun. What it captures is relayed to a television screen in front of me, in the dome’s control room.
“You can see sun spots here and here,” says Matt Woods. With clicks of a computer mouse, he gradually increases the telescope’s exposure length until we can both make out clouds of gas around the edge of the sun. “Pretty cool, huh,” he remarks.
Woods is tour administrator at the Perth Observatory. A genial man, and fount of astronomical knowledge, he leads regular tours of this facility, the oldest of its kind in Western Australia. It was opened 125 years ago in West Perth, which is now a busy inner city area, before being relocated in 1966 to Bickley, a semirural suburb 25km (15.5 miles) east of Perth’s skyscrapers.
Known for parks, hiking trails, small wineries and old-school Aussie pubs, the Perth hills feel more distant from the city centre than maps show. This space and serenity lures many day trippers. It also makes it a fine perch from which to gaze beyond this state, country, planet and even solar system, deep into the galaxy.
Australia’s clear skies and low population density make it one of the best countries from which to observe space. Tourists can delve into the history of such endeavours at sites across the nation, from observatories to science museums, space communication stations and rocket launch facilities (see below).
