Vanessa Moss, astronomer

Can you build your own collaborator? And what goes on behind the scenes of our big, complex, scientific infrastructure?

Astronomer Dr Vanessa Moss is Head of Science Operations for CSIRO’s ASKAP radio telescope. Situated in a remote location, the telescope was always planned to be controlled remotely – by a human. But Vanessa has taken this a step further by building a system to autonomously control the telescope, called SAURON.

Which is a Lord of the Rings reference (for those of us that are outside the LOTR realm) to Sauron, who has an all-seeing eye. In this case, SAURON stands for Scheduling Autonomously Under Reactive Observational Needs, and it’s helping us see as much of the sky as possible.

Comedian Seizure Kaiser is on-hand to make sure we don’t use too many acronyms and is pretty glad we’re not talking cricket facts. 

Hosted by Rachel Rayner, Science Explainer

Transcript

Links for more:

Highlight article by Rachel Rayner, Science Explainer will be on the website soon: Australian Highlights

CSIRO's ASKAP radio telescope at Inyarrimanha Ilgari Bundara, the CSIRO Murchison Radio-astronomy Observatory

Follow Seizure on Instagram and find out what shows are coming up, including at the Sydney Comedy Festival.

Credits

Producer: Rachel Rayner, Science Explainer

Guests: Vanessa Moss, Seizure Kaiser

Music: Michelle Cashman

Editing: Graham Hunt

Made possible through Meta Australia Journalism Fund, administered by the Walkley Foundation, with support from Comedy Victoria.

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