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Speaker 1: Doctor Rebecca Davies, who is an astronomer. She's in Adelaide

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Speaker 1: because this week you at the Adelaide UNI. The Annual

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Speaker 1: Conference of the Astronomical Society of Australia is underway now.

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Speaker 1: Who knew, but I only found out about it today

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Speaker 1: and Rebecca's good enough to come in tonight, doctor Davies.

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Speaker 1: Good evening, welcome.

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Speaker 2: Good evening, Thanks for having me, Thank you.

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Speaker 1: For coming in. So what's the conference about. Let's start

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Speaker 1: with that. So obviously there must be a lot of

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Speaker 1: people from around the country here, all interested in astronomy.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, so this is the Annual Conference of the Astronomical

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Speaker 3: Society of Australia, as you mentioned, and this is a

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Speaker 3: meeting that we have every year for astronomers from across

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Speaker 3: Australia to gather together and share the latest developments in research,

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Speaker 3: what's been going on with facilities, and also just to

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Speaker 3: network and get to.

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Speaker 2: Know each other.

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Speaker 1: Okay, how does one become an astronomer? What made you

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Speaker 1: become an astronomer? It's not a usual career choice, I imagine.

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Speaker 3: No. I think there are a lot more people that

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Speaker 3: dream of being astronauts when they're kids, but then grow

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Speaker 3: up and realize that that's not a very realistic dream

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Speaker 3: for most people. My passion for astrophysics stemmed from a

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Speaker 3: love of science at a young age. My dad is

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Speaker 3: an engineer, and he encouraged me a lot to be

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Speaker 3: just curious about the world around me and how everything worked.

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Speaker 3: And I have quite vivid memories from some family holidays

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Speaker 3: when I was a kid driving out to the out

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Speaker 3: back like Broken Hill and just seeing the incredible night

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Speaker 3: sky bursting with stars, and from that moment, I was

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Speaker 3: addicted to the question of understanding what is out there

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Speaker 3: and how it all.

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Speaker 2: Came to be.

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Speaker 1: It's amazing when you do see the stars in a

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Speaker 1: dark location, wherever you are in the country, away from

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Speaker 1: a city and even a small town. Just amazing when

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Speaker 1: it's totally pitch black and you see the milky way

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Speaker 1: in the rest.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, it's absolutely incredible and one of the biggest treats

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Speaker 3: for me still whenever I go to a dark place.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, it is. It's all inspiring, no matter how many

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Speaker 1: times you've seen that. Side. That's really interesting. How okay,

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Speaker 1: are there career opportunities for astronomers or a growth businesssts?

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Speaker 3: Yeah for sure, So, I mean the most obvious career

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Speaker 3: that most people probably think of is the career that

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Speaker 3: I have, which is as a researcher and a university professor.

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Speaker 3: But there are also lots of different directions that people take.

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Speaker 3: There are people that work at telescopes, so in New

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Speaker 3: South Wales there's the Parks Dish that probably a lot

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Speaker 3: of people have heard of, and there's an observatory in

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Speaker 3: Kunabara brand so people work there. There's also the Australian

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Speaker 3: Space Agency here in Adelaide, and then there's a whole

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Speaker 3: lot of other jobs that people trained in astronomy are

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Speaker 3: good at because what astronomers do a lot is data analysis, okay,

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Speaker 3: and people probably know that data science is a very

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Speaker 3: quick growing field. So people that study astronomy can end

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Speaker 3: up working in meteorology or satellite imaging analysis or financial

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Speaker 3: medical imaging.

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Speaker 2: Really there's a lot of opportunities out there.

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Speaker 1: What do you study. It's got to be maths, physics

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Speaker 1: and science, right.

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Speaker 2: Yes, absolutely, and maybe some computer programming can do you

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Speaker 2: pretty good as well.

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Speaker 1: So not for dummies like me, that's for sure. Okay.

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Speaker 1: So your work, your research is into galactic winds, so

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Speaker 1: this is space wind, yes, wind hurtling through the Solar system.

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Speaker 3: Not quite, okay, So you can think of galactic winds

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Speaker 3: kind of like geysers that erupt from galaxies. So if

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Speaker 3: you imagine in the centers of galaxies, you can have

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Speaker 3: lots of stars forming, there might be a lot of

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Speaker 3: stars exploding as supern ov and there could also be

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Speaker 3: things like feeding black holes, and all of this can

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Speaker 3: put a lot of energy into the center of the galaxy.

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Speaker 3: And if you get enough energy, it can essentially push

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Speaker 3: gas and dust out of the galaxy and into interstellar space.

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Speaker 3: And this is what we refer to as the galactic outflows.

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Speaker 1: What energy, so is it just stars being born essentially

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Speaker 1: that pushes the dust around.

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Speaker 2: So it's either like the light that the light that's

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Speaker 2: being produced by the stars.

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Speaker 3: So you know, our sun produces a lot of light,

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Speaker 3: which is great for us because it heats up the

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Speaker 3: Earth and lets us live here. But that light can

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Speaker 3: also push dust grains, okay, And so that's one way

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Speaker 3: that you can drive outflows. And the other way is

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Speaker 3: by having stars that physically explode. So when big stars

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Speaker 3: reach the end of their lives, they basically collapse in

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Speaker 3: on themselves and then explode out in soup and over explosions,

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Speaker 3: and that can these outflows.

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Speaker 1: Yes, yeah, okay, all right, so when we have and

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Speaker 1: we did have earlier this year, as you'll recall the

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Speaker 1: what's it called the auroras that we had, and is

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Speaker 1: that the sort of thing we're talking about? They're obviously

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Speaker 1: solar flares, but that must also be galactic wind.

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Speaker 3: Presumably it's a very different type of physical scale and

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Speaker 3: it's produced by a different type of process it so

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Speaker 3: that's probably more what we call the solar wind. So

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Speaker 3: that's the wind from the Sun that's producing these aurora.

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Speaker 1: All right, solar wind, Yeah, got it? All right? You

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Speaker 1: use the James web Telescope space telescope. What's it like

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Speaker 1: using that? How do you use that? I mean, we've

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Speaker 1: all heard about it, so and it's out there taking

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Speaker 1: photos and we've seen some of the incredible pictures. How

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Speaker 1: do you use the James Web space Telescope? Yeah?

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Speaker 3: The James Web Space Telescope is really an incredible machine.

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Speaker 3: It's something that has completely transformed the way that we

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Speaker 3: do astronomy over the last few years. Obviously, because it's

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Speaker 3: such a valuable tool, everyone wants to use it and

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Speaker 3: so it's really highly competitive. So once a year, NASA

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Speaker 3: issues a call for proposals basically a call for applications

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Speaker 3: to use the telescope. So all the astronomers get together

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Speaker 3: in teams and try to come up with good ideas

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Speaker 3: for how they can use the telescope. They write the

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Speaker 3: proposals and submit them to NASA, and then these proposals

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Speaker 3: get sent to panels of experts who grade all of

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Speaker 3: the proposals and they rank them and basically based on

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Speaker 3: the ranking, that decides who gets the time. And last

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Speaker 3: year there were so many proposals that were submitted, About

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Speaker 3: two thousand proposals were submitted that requested something like eighty

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Speaker 3: thousand hours of observing time, and that's equivalent to about

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Speaker 3: nine years worth of observing time, and there was only

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Speaker 3: one year available. So essentially only one in every nine

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Speaker 3: proposals that was submitted was accept so it's very competitive.

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Speaker 1: Yours has been.

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Speaker 3: Yes, So I do have one proposal that was accepted.

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Speaker 1: Yes, and tell us about that. So what this is

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Speaker 1: the galactic winds that you're studying? So what are you

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Speaker 1: looking at? What what are you hoping to find?

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Speaker 3: Yeah, so essentially what the James Web telescope allows us

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Speaker 3: to do is to see the faint gas in galactic

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Speaker 3: outflows that actually forms the bulk of these winds. Okay,

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Speaker 3: so in the past, with telescopes on the ground, we've

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Speaker 3: been able to see very bright gas that is maybe

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Speaker 3: the hottest gas in these winds, and but we think

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Speaker 3: that it only makes up something like one to.

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Speaker 2: Ten percent of the total mass.

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Speaker 3: So it's kind of like if you see the iceberg,

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Speaker 3: but you only see the bit above the water, Whereas

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Speaker 3: with the James Webb telescope, we can now go deeper

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Speaker 3: and see this gas that's a lot fainter but actually

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Speaker 3: carries a lot more of the MA, and so this

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Speaker 3: gives us a much more complete picture of how powerful

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Speaker 3: these outflows can really be.

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Speaker 1: Okay, and because it views an infrared does that make

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Speaker 1: a difference to picking up the gas.

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Speaker 3: We also have infrared telescopes on the Earth, but the

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Speaker 3: big advantage of James Web is that it doesn't have

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Speaker 3: to look through the Earth's atmosphere. The atmosphere is a

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Speaker 3: big problem for the infrared because they are actually molecules

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Speaker 3: in the atmosphere that emit in the infrared, So large

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Speaker 3: parts of the infrared spectrum are basically inaccessible for us

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Speaker 3: on Earth. And also there's just a lot of noise

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Speaker 3: in the spectrum that it's hard to see past. So

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Speaker 3: what James Web gives us is much higher quality spectra

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Speaker 3: in the infrared, so that we can see faint features

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Speaker 3: that we would not have been able to see from

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Speaker 3: the ground.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, well that all makes sense. Galactic winds. The

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Speaker 1: point of studying that, I presume is to work out

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Speaker 1: where we've all come from. I mean, what other point

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Speaker 1: is the Earth at risk of galactics but something. Yeah.

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Speaker 3: The main reason that galactic winds are really interesting is

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Speaker 3: because they might help us to understand why galaxies stop

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Speaker 3: growing and why galaxies eventually die. So if we look

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Speaker 3: at galaxies like our own Milky Way, for example, we

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Speaker 3: see that most of the stars in our galaxy actually

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Speaker 3: formed something like ten billion years ago, and since then

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Speaker 3: the galaxy has only been forming very few stars. And

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Speaker 3: so we really want to answer the question why is that?

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Speaker 3: Why did the galaxy stop growing so fast? And galactic

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Speaker 3: winds offer a potential solution because they are removing a

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Speaker 3: lot of gas from the galaxy, and if they remove

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Speaker 3: this gas quickly enough, then essentially they're starving galaxies of

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Speaker 3: their food, the galaxies won't have any fuel left to

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Speaker 3: form new stars. And in fact, that's what my paper

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Speaker 3: show that when we look at this new data from

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Speaker 3: the James Webb Telescope, we did find examples of winds

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Speaker 3: that were removing gas so quickly that they could basically

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Speaker 3: starve the galaxies of all their fuel in an amount

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Speaker 3: of time. That's about one percent of the current age

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Speaker 3: of the universe. So that's quite quick on astronomy.

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Speaker 1: Get it slow but quick, yes, exactly, Yeah, okay, that's interesting.

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Speaker 1: And so then what happens to the galaxy. It's just

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Speaker 1: not a galaxy, it's just a few stars and maybe

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Speaker 1: planets that have formed in the time they had.

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Speaker 3: Yes, I mean in most cases for the really big galaxies,

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Speaker 3: they still stay galaxies.

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Speaker 2: They basically, you.

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Speaker 3: Know, they just they don't form any more stars, but

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Speaker 3: they can keep the structure that they have. And then

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Speaker 3: eventually the big stars die, they explode a super and

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Speaker 3: ov and over time you're just left with the low mass,

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Speaker 3: cooler stars, and so the galaxy gets fainter and fainter

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Speaker 3: and redder and redder, and we'll just stay that way

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Speaker 3: for a very long time unless it's able to get

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Speaker 3: fresh gas from a neighboring galaxy.

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Speaker 2: Or somewhere else.

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Speaker 1: Now, I don't mean this to be a flippant question.

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Speaker 1: This is, you know, galaxy galaxial wins for dummies one

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Speaker 1: I want coming from me? But is there a lifetime's

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Speaker 1: work in what you've just said?

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Speaker 3: So this is this is actually a really big question

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Speaker 3: that astronomers have been trying to answer, you know, probably

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Speaker 3: for thirty years at at least. And one of the

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Speaker 3: reasons for this is that, you know, we have many

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Speaker 3: reasons to think that outflows are one of the most

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Speaker 3: important processes that impact how galaxies grow, but it's actually

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Speaker 3: really difficult to measure their properties. And that's reflected in

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Speaker 3: the fact that you know, with with James Web, with

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Speaker 3: this new facility, we're now making groundbreaking measurements about just

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Speaker 3: how much masses contain in these outflows. I mean, it

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Speaker 3: seems like a pretty basic number that we would want

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Speaker 3: to measure how much gas are these outflows actually removing,

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Speaker 3: But it turns out that they're very faint. I mean,

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Speaker 3: stars produce a lot of light, they're quite easy to observe,

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Speaker 3: but if you imagine, you know, gas in the atmosphere

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Speaker 3: it's very hard to see that with a telescope, and

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Speaker 3: so the gas is quite diffuse and very hard to see.

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Speaker 3: So this is the main challenge that has stopped us

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Speaker 3: from answering these questions.

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Speaker 1: So, car and do you expect you'll find the answer?

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Speaker 3: I think we always aim to keep getting a step

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Speaker 3: closer and closer to the answer. It's very I think

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Speaker 3: it's it's very difficult in science to ever have a

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Speaker 3: definitive answer to a question, but we always try to

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Speaker 3: keep ruling out more and more possibilities and getting more

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Speaker 3: and more.

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Speaker 1: Certain So, okay, going back to the James webspace, tell

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Speaker 1: Uscott you put in the request, They've agreed to it obviously,

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Speaker 1: and then they just send you data. They send you

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Speaker 1: what photos or what videos? What do they send you?

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Speaker 3: Yeah, So essentially, when your program is accepted, they will

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Speaker 3: schedule it in their queue based on what type of

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Speaker 3: observations you want. And there's lots of different types of

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Speaker 3: observations you can get from James web so you can

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Speaker 3: just get images. The type of observations that I got

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Speaker 3: were spectra, which essentially means that you take the light

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Speaker 3: from the galaxy and you pass it through a prism

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Speaker 3: so that you split up the light into all of

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Speaker 3: its colors. And then that's useful because in the spectra

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Speaker 3: we can see chemical fingerprints of specific atoms and elements

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Speaker 3: in the galaxies. So we can actually see in my paper,

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Speaker 3: I studied sodium gas in these in these distant galaxies,

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Speaker 3: and we can see that these chemical fingerprints move.

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Speaker 2: Around as they are Doppler shifted.

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Speaker 3: So like when you hear an ambulance going past the street,

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Speaker 3: the pitch changes as it's coming towards you and then

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Speaker 3: moving away from you. Yeah, and exactly the same thing

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Speaker 3: happens in galaxies. So if the gas is moving at

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Speaker 3: different speeds, it's it's position in the spectrum shifts very slightly,

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Speaker 3: and we can use this to study the motions of gas,

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Speaker 3: and that's how we can know that it's being ejected

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Speaker 3: from the galaxy.

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Speaker 1: Okay, amazing at the conference, have you been impressed by

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Speaker 1: the work of some of your colleagues from around the country.

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Speaker 1: Is anyone doing anything? You know, super excited? That's exciting too,

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Speaker 1: But that's super exciting that you've gone, Well that's really interesting.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, for sure.

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Speaker 3: So I mean there's there's a lot of exciting results

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Speaker 3: already been presented and it's only been two days out

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Speaker 3: of five so far. There is a lot of exciting

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Speaker 3: work happening with the James Space Telescope as well to

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Speaker 3: try and understand the properties of extrasolar planets. So these

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Speaker 3: are planets in the Milky Way, but outside of our

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Speaker 3: own Solar system, and that was one of the main

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Speaker 3: science cases that the James Web Telescope was designed for.

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Speaker 3: So just recently there was the first planet discovered by

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Speaker 3: direct imaging by the James Webb Telescope. So there's a

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Speaker 3: lot of really exciting things going on there and I'm

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Speaker 3: really keen to see what comes out in the future,

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Speaker 3: you know, And.

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Speaker 1: For you specifically, you're looking at your spectrum, as you said,

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Speaker 1: of guesses and whatever. But when I've seen photos it's taken,

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Speaker 1: say of Saturn, and because it's infra red, I look

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Speaker 1: at that from the James Web Space Telescope and think,

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Speaker 1: you know what, I prefer the Hubble photo of Saturn

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Speaker 1: because it's at least looks real as opposed to an

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Speaker 1: X ray almost. Yeah.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, it's really interesting looking at.

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Speaker 3: Any images that we see from James Webb are obviously

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Speaker 3: not what we would see with our own eyes, because

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Speaker 3: James Webb sees infrared lights, so all of the images

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Speaker 3: you see are what we call false color images. So essentially,

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Speaker 3: the James Web will take pictures in different filters similar

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Speaker 3: to you know, invisible light we can have we can

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Speaker 3: put a blue filter in front of a telescope, a

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Speaker 3: green filter, a red filter and then combine them to

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Speaker 3: make an image, and the James Web will do similar things,

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Speaker 3: but just with infrared filters.

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Speaker 1: How about that. Okay, By the way, before we let

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Speaker 1: you go, it must point out you've picked up the

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Speaker 1: Astronomical Society of Australia's Louise Webster Prize for outstanding research

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Speaker 1: by scientists early in their post doctoral career. So that's

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Speaker 1: something you've done some years ago.

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Speaker 2: This is for a paper published last year. Yes, which

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Speaker 2: we have just been discussing right that one. Okay wins.

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Speaker 1: Okay, brilliant, So that's been all of that amazing, Well

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Speaker 1: well done on that. So you're you're reasonably new to

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Speaker 1: the game then in astronomical terms.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, Well, so this Luis web Surprise is for people

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Speaker 3: that completed their PhD less.

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Speaker 2: Than five years ago.

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Speaker 3: And so I'm at the moment I'm just in the

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Speaker 3: process of building up my own research group and hiring

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Speaker 3: research students and yeah, trying to get my own research

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Speaker 3: program off the ground.

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Speaker 1: Excellent, Well, good luck with that. And I really appreciate

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Speaker 1: your time tonight and the conference on who knew but

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Speaker 1: it's here? And how many people roughly I.

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Speaker 2: Think they're around two hundred and fifty people.

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Speaker 1: Registered, reasonable size conference. Ye, so a few of you

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Speaker 1: and enjoying Adelaide for a week. Thank you for your time,

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Speaker 1: lovely meeting you and all the best with the research.

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Speaker 1: And it certainly sounds important. Graham. Graham text it in

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Speaker 1: before you go, and I reckon, this is below your payscale, Rebecca.

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Speaker 1: I've got to say once tonight Voyager one and two,

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Speaker 1: are they an interstellar space?

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Speaker 3: Yes, the Voyager one and Voyager two, our missions have

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Speaker 3: both reached into stellar space, and so they.

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Speaker 2: Are going off to explore the cosmos.

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Speaker 3: And hopefully they'll send some fun messages back to us

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Speaker 3: with it they find to a galaxy.

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Speaker 1: What are they saying? Star wars in whatever, it is

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Speaker 1: not too far away or whatever. Appreciate your time, Rebecca,

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Speaker 1: lovely meeting, all the best with your science work.

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Speaker 2: Thank you very much.

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Speaker 1: Thanks for having me my guest doctor Rebecca Davies in

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Speaker 1: Adelaide for the annual Conference of the Astronomical Society of Australia.

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Speaker 1: This is what people are doing. It's amazing, isn't it

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Speaker 1: terrific work And obviously Rebecca, as I say, I'm certainly

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Speaker 1: not in her pay grade or brain space, not by

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Speaker 1: a long way, but amazing what young Australians are doing

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Speaker 1: to find out answers to the universe. I love it.

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Speaker 1: So it's all good and they're enjoying a week in

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Speaker 1: Adelaide as they share the research