It may seem counterintuitive that astronomy, the study of incomprehensibly big things, could be in any way c onnected to particle physics—the study of the incomprehensibly small. Howev er, the field of astroparticle physics is a rich and fascinating discipline that reveals there are many deep connections between these two realms. In fact, many astronomical objects cannot be understood without knowledge of t he processes governing the behaviour of fundamental particles. And on the f lip side, studying the behaviours of things like stars and galaxies can giv e us unique insights into fundamental physics that we would never be able t o gain access to in mundane human-scale laboratory experiments. Astropartic le physics therefore deals with some of the largest outstanding questions t hat we still have about the universe, such as the nature of the elusive dar k matter, among other mysteries.
Ciaran O ’Hare is an ARC DECRA fellow working at the interface between astronomy and particle physics. He got his PhD from the University of Nottingham in the UK and eventually moved to Australia in 2019 to work at the University of S ydney, and within the Australian Research Council’s Centre of Excellence fo r Dark Matter Particle Physics. His primary research focus is on trying to understand the nature of dark matter.
X-ALT-DESC;FMTTYPE=text/html:It may seem counterintuitive that astronomy, the study of incomprehensibly big things, could be in any way c onnected to particle physics—the study of the incomprehensibly small. Howev er, the field of astroparticle physics is a rich and fascinating discipline that reveals there are many deep connections between these two realms. In fact, many astronomical objects cannot be understood without knowledge of t he processes governing the behaviour of fundamental particles. And on the f lip side, studying the behaviours of things like stars and galaxies can giv e us unique insights into fundamental physics that we would never be able t o gain access to in mundane human-scale laboratory experiments. Astropartic le physics therefore deals with some of the largest outstanding questions t hat we still have about the universe, such as the nature of the elusive dar k matter, among other mysteries.
Ciaran O’Hare is an ARC DECRA fellow working at the interfa ce between astronomy and particle physics. He got his PhD from the Universi ty of Nottingham in the UK and eventually moved to Australia in 2019 to wor k at the University of Sydney, and within the Australian Research Council’s Centre of Excellence for Dark Matter Particle Physics. His primary researc h focus is on trying to understand the nature of dark matter.
DTSTAMP:20260606T060249 DTSTART;TZID=Australia/Sydney:20241003T193000 DTEND;TZID=Australia/Sydney:20241003T213000 SEQUENCE:0 TRANSP:OPAQUE END:VEVENT END:VCALENDAR