Welcome to the Astronomical Society of South Australia

We journey back to ancient times and take a look at the visionaries who developed our basic understandings of the universe. More recently we look at the discoveries made by Copernicus, Gallileo, Sir Issac Newton and many more.

Stars live an incredibly long time. Some will live longer than the current age of the universe but all will eventually run out of fuel and die. In this session, we will explore the life cycles of the stars. How they are born from vast clouds of dust and gas and evolve throughout their long lives as their fuel is consumed. The life cycles of stars are directly linked to their mass. Massive stars live fast and die young exploding as supernovae and seeding the universe with heavy elements. Less massive stars like the Sun will end their lives as beautiful planetary nebulae.

A meteorite fall precisely observed from multiple locations allows us to track the object back to the region of the Solar System it came from, and sometimes link it with a parent body, providing context information that helps trace the history of the Solar System. The Desert Fireball Network (DFN) is built in arid areas of Australia: its observatories get favourable observing conditions, and meteorite recovery is eased thanks to the terrain.