This place is markedly different to what it was in Duffield’s time. The isolation that, even as late as the 1960s, was part of life on Mount Stromlo, has ended. It was a small community then, and ventures off the mountain were only as frequent as weekly shopping trips into Canberra or Queanbeyan. The artist Rosalie Gascoigne, a long-time resident with her astronomer husband Ben, once described the feeling of this isolation in terms of starvation, saying she grew hungry for human communication, that many on the mountain suffered from loneliness, and that the place – which relied on a type of pioneering subsistence living – was kept going only by the magic of the work.
A second change to life here remains, of course, the fire. It saw the loss of Mount Stromlo’s workshops, its telescopes and the original Commonwealth Solar Observatory building (since rebuilt) with its library (forever lost). Several projects went up in smoke with the workshop, including a pioneering tool for studying early galaxies known as NIFS (since reconstructed), as well as optical manufacturing equipment (never replaced). Among the telescopes lost was the enormous 74 inch and the Great Melbourne, both of which were in nightly use. Incredibly, the Melbourne was 135 years old: constructed in Dublin in 1868, it had just been roboticised, with the addition of new instruments allowing it to investigate dark matter.
Astronomer Ken Freeman, who first came to Stromlo in 1967, remembers the Saturday of the 2003 fire as ‘stinking hot’. By that day, the fire had been burning west of Canberra for more than a week. As a volunteer firefighter, Freeman had helped to extinguish a blaze that had started in a similar spot in 1973. Thirty years later he was on the mountain, watching a new fire that, fed by powerful winds, had now crossed the Murrumbidgee and was preparing to race up the hillside. There was no plan to actively defend the observatory against a serious bushfire. The idea of doing so was too dangerous. Instead, about half an hour before the fire arrived, those on the mountain retreated.
Freeman went to defend his own home in nearby Duffy, where he’d moved when the suburb first opened. There he was soon fighting a fire coming on multiple fronts. He stayed, trying to beat it, until Duffy’s water supply failed. After that, little could be done and he drove away. His home was destroyed alongside nearly five hundred others, including that of fellow astronomer Mike Bessell. Tragically that day, four people in Canberra lost their lives.
On Mount Stromlo, the fire changed things irretrievably. Hot enough to melt the domes, its wake left a brown and black landscape of burnt pines and twisted metal; a place of warp and collapse. Much of the observatory’s history was destroyed, as well as its capabilities. Two office buildings survived, so while staff were soon able to move back to the mountain (the ash in their offices included that of their curtains), there was no guarantee that the observatory would be rebuilt. On top of the physical damage was an emotional toll. Some speak of a grim and subdued atmosphere and a period of depression and stagnation. Others say it took three or four years for things to feel normal again.
Yet for all the destruction, many of the astronomers here will tell you that eventually the observatory will look gratefully at the fire and the hard decisions it forced. Rebuilding has allowed for a new focus, including the creation of an advanced instrumentation engineering centre – something that has put Stromlo at the heart of international projects such as the Giant Magellan telescope, an instrument that will use seven mirrors, each as big as the single mirrors in today’s largest telescopes. Researchers from around the world now come to explore everything from galactic archaeology to the nature of black holes, and there are plans to build a discovery centre and museum with help from the Smithsonian. Thus, while the fire destroyed much of the observatory and made stark ruins of its past, it’s also made for a brighter future – one that, beyond the heartache, has invigorated this place.
Lost
Looking skyward
Advisory panel
FRANK BOWDEN is Professor of Medicine at the Australian National University’s medical school and an infectious diseases physician at the Canberra Hospital. His research interests include the mathematical modelling of infectious diseases, the control of sexually transmitted infection and the development of novel treatments for head lice. His book Gone Viral: The germs that share our lives was shortlisted for the 2012 Queensland Literary Awards.
MERLIN CROSSLEY is Dean of Science at the University of New South Wales. A molecular biologist by training, he has studied or worked at the universities of Sydney, Melbourne, Harvard, and Oxford, where he held a Rhodes Scholarship. He is a Trustee of the Australian Museum and a board member of the Sydney Institute of Marine Science. He continues to be an active researcher, as well as an enthusiastic teacher, and supporter of science communication.
TANYA MONRO is an ARC Federation Fellow, Professor of Physics, and Director of the Institute for Photonics and Advanced Sensing (IPAS) at The University of Adelaide. She is a Fellow of the Australian Academy of Science and the Australian Academy of Technological Sciences and Engineering. Awards recognising Tanya include the 2012 Pawsey Medal and South Australia’s Australian of the Year in 2011. Tanya has published over 500 papers and raised over $86 million for research. Her transdisciplinary research focuses on creating disruptive photonic sensing technologies.
Acknowledgments
‘The weather of who we are’ by Mark Tredinnick: broadcast on Ockham’s Razor, ABC Radio National (20 May 2012), an edited extract from Australia’s Wild Weather by Mark Tredinnick (National Library of Australia 2011)
‘It’s time to become gonads’ by Becky Crew: excerpted from Zombie Tits, Astronaut Fish and Other Weird Animals by Becky Crew (NewSouth 2012)
‘The last laughing death’ by Jo Chandler: published in The Global Mail, 13 November 2012
‘The perils of evolution’ by Janine Burke: excerpted from Nest: The art of birds by Janine Burke (Allen & Unwin 2012)
‘Darwin’s modest discovery’ by Damon Young: published on The Drum, Australian Broadcasting Corporation (May 2012)
‘Earthmasters: Playing God with the climate’ by Clive Hamilton: edited extract from Earthmasters: Playing God with the climate by Clive Hamilton (Allen & Unwin 2013)
‘Science is more than freaks and circuses’ by Paul Livingston: published on The Drum, Australian Broadcasting Corporation (June 2012)
‘Animals on drugs’ by Rhianna Boyle: published in The Lifted Brow (Issue 14, October 2012)
‘Dreamtime cave’ by Elizabeth Finkel: published in COSMOS (Volume 44, p43–49)
‘Heart dissection’ by Ian Gibbins: published in Urban Biology by Ian Gibbins (Friendly Street Poets/Wakefield Press 2012)
‘Reaching one thousand’ by Rachel Robertson: edited extract from Reaching One Thousand: A story of love, motherhood and autism by Rachel Robertson (Black Inc. 2012)
‘Higgs boson’ by Michael Lucy: published in The Monthly (August 2012)
‘Here come the übernerds: Planets, Pluto and Prague’ by Fred Watson: edited extract from Star-Craving Mad: Tales from a travelling astronomer by Fred Watson (Allen & Unwin 2013)
‘Many-worlds quantum mechanics vs earth-based grease monkeys’ by gareth roi jones: public display on RiAus building, Adelaide, South Australia
‘The vagina dialogues’ by Cordelia Fine: published in The Monthly (November 2012)
‘Big Data can tell by your tweets if you’re a psychopath: That’s only the beginning …’ by Kirsten Drysdale: published in The Global Mail (August 2012)
‘With body in mind (after Vesalius)’ by Ian Gibbins: published in Urban Biology by Ian Gibbins (Friendly Street Poets/ Wakefield Press 2012)
‘How a donor is done’ by Kellee Slater: excerpted from How to do a Liver Transplant: Stories from my surgical life by Kellee Slater (NewSouth 2013)
‘Nest: The art of birds’ by Janine Burke: edited extract from Nest: The art of
birds by Janine Burke (Allen & Unwin 2012)
‘My father’s body’ by Francesca Rendle-Short: this version published in Invisible Thread: 100 Years of Words (Halstead Press 2012), based on essay in Overland (print issue 197 Summer 2009)
‘Sentinel chickens’ by Peter Doherty: excerpted from Sentinel Chickens: What birds tell us about our health and the world by Peter Doherty (MUP 2012)
‘The science of shark fishing’ by Ian Gibbins: published in Urban Biology by Ian Gibbins (Friendly Street Poets/ Wakefield Press 2012)
‘On flatulence’ by Nicholas Haslam: excerpted from Psychology in the Bathroom by Nicholas Haslam (Palgrave Macmillan 2012)
‘Radioactive cigarettes: X-ray inhale’ by Karl Kruszelnicki: excerpted from 50 Shades of Grey Matter by Karl Kruszelnicki (Pan Macmillan 2012)
‘Martyrs to Gondwanaland: The cost of scientific exploration’ by Chris Turney: edited extract from 1912: The year the world discovered Antarctica by Chris Turney (Text Publishing 2012)
‘Mr Jevons and his paradox’ by Antony Funnell: excerpted from The Future and #relatednonsense (ABC Books/HarperCollins 2012)
‘Alimentary thinking’ by Emma Young: published in New Scientist (15 December 2012) © 2012 Reed Business Information, UK. All rights reserved. Distributed by Tribune Media Services
‘The carnivore’s (ongoing) dilemma’ by Åsa Wahlquist: published in The Global Mail (August 30 2012)
‘Beyond the Shock Machine’ by Gina Perry: edited extract from Behind the Shock Machine: The untold story of the notorious Milgram psychology experiments by Gina Perry (Scribe 2012)
‘Australia’s endangered future’ by Tim Flannery: edited extract from After the Future: Australia’s new extinction crisis by Tim Flannery (Quarterly Essay, Issue 48, 2012)
‘Alive as a dodo’ by Nicky Phillips: published in the Sydney Morning Herald (29 March 2013)
‘Probably a sacrifice’ by Ian Gibbins: published in Urban Biology (Friendly Street Poets/Wakefield Press 2012)
‘Fire on the mountain: A walk on Mt Stromlo’ by Andrew Croome: published in Meanjin (Vol 1, 2013)
THE BRAGG UNSW PRESS
PRIZE FOR SCIENCE WRITING
In 2012, NewSouth Publishing launched a new annual prize for the best short non-fiction piece on science written for a general audience. The Bragg UNSW Press Prize is named in honour of Australia’s first Nobel laureates, William Henry Bragg and his son William Lawrence Bragg. The Braggs won the 1915 Nobel Prize for physics for their work on the analysis of crystal structure by means of X-rays. Both scientists led enormously productive lives and left a lasting legacy. William Henry Bragg was a firm believer in making science popular among young people, and his Christmas lectures for students were described as models of clarity and intellectual excitement.
The Bragg UNSW Press Prize is supported by the Copyright Agency Cultural Fund.The winner receives a prize of $7000 and two runners up each receive a prize of $1500.
Jo Chandler won the first prize in 2012. Ashley Hay and Peter McAllister received the runners-up prizes.
The shortlisted entries for the 2013 prize are included in this anthology.
The Bragg UNSW Press Prize for Science Writing 2013 Shortlist
Jo Chandler The last laughing death
Becky Crew It’s time to become gonads
Elizabeth Finkel Dreamtime cave
Clive Hamilton Earthmasters:
Playing God with the climate
Gina Perry Beyond the shock machine
Chris Turney Martyrs to Gondwanaland:
The cost of scientific exploration
Fred Watson Here come the übernerds:
Planets, Pluto and Prague
Winners announced on 29 October 2013 at newsouthpublishing.com/scienceprize
* * * * *
Judges of the Bragg UNSW Press Prize 2013
Professor Frank Bowden
Professor Merlin Crossley
Professor Tanya Monro
Natasha Mitchell and Jane McCredie, editors of
The Best Australian Science Writing 2013
The Best Australian Science Writing 2013 Page 27