The Murchison Widefield Array – Epoch of Reionisation Project

Inyarrimanha Ilgari Bundara, CSIRO’s Murchison Radio-astronomy Observatory, hosts a low frequency radio telescope in the Western Australian desert. Operating between 80 and 300 MHz, the Murchison Widefield Array (MWA) explores many scientific questions. The MWA will search for signals from neutral hydrogen that resides between galaxies in the first billion years of the Universe. During this crucial evolutionary period, entitled the Epoch of Reionisation (EoR), the first stars and galaxies in our Universe were born, completing our understanding of the full history of the Universe.

The hydrogen signal encodes key information about the spatial location and evolution of these first astrophysical objects, but its detection remains elusive due to the weakness of the signal compared with the foreground radio sky, and the complexity of the instrumental measurement.

The ASTRO 3D EoR program, led by CIs Cathryn Trott and Rachel Webster, will provide new measurements of this period of the Universe. Utilising the upgraded MWA, in which additional receiving stations have been added to enhance EoR science, and building on our growing knowledge of our instrument and foreground sky, we will firstly re-process the existing four years of MWA data, building a quality database to triage the cleanest data from the most contaminated.

Telescope Upgrade

Improving data

During 2018, the team processed all of the highest-quality data observed over four years to create a database of data quality metrics. Utilising this database, they were able to choose the cleanest data with which to pursue this weak cosmological signal.

MWA-EOR PROJECT leadership

Cathryn Trott
Cathryn TrottChief Investigator
Rachel Webster
Rachel WebsterChief Investigator

Latest IN MWA-EOR

Removing the Milky Way

August's Monthly Media comes from Dr Nichole Barry, who's showcasing the results of using simulated sky images to remove the effects of the Milky Way from MWA data in order to see the Epoch of [...]

Begone, Supernova Remnants!

Bringing in the New Year for 2022 is a Monthly Media from PhD student Jaiden Cook, on his mission to remove every supernova remnant from existen- from images of the early universe.The Epoch of Reionisation [...]

Closing in on the first light in the Universe

Research using new antennas in the Australian hinterland has reduced background noise and brought us closer to finding a 13-billion-year-old signal The early Universe was dark, filled with a hot soup of opaque particles. [...]