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An astronomical award

29 October 2008

Dr Simon Campbell
Dr Simon Campbell

For Monash postgraduate Dr Simon Campbell, the sky's the limit.

In a unanimous decision by the Astronomical Society of Australia, Dr Campbell has been awarded the Charlene Heisler Prize for the best Australian Astronomy PhD thesis in 2007.

Dr Campbell's thesis Structural and nucleosynthetic evolution of metal-poor and metal-free low and intermediate mass stars impressed the judging committee with its scope and the clear way it linked theory and observation.

Dr Campbell said it was an honour to receive the award and welcome recognition for years of hard work and effort.

"My thesis was a study in stellar evolution, using computer codes that include the necessary physics to follow the entire lifetime evolution of various types of stars," Dr Campbell said.

"It focused on stars born just after the Big Bang -- the first generation of stars that lit up the universe.

"These stars were also the first to release newly-formed elements into the universe, often referred to as pollution, through supernovae and stellar winds.

"This pollution or 'stardust' has now found its way into more modern stars like our sun, as well as planets and even living things like us!"

Dr Campbell also investigated the second generation of stars.

He said the two generations were of particular interest because astronomers had recently discovered a group of stars in the Milky Way galaxy that have very little pollution.

"This means that they are extremely old -- they are 'stellar relics' from the early times of the universe," Dr Campbell said.

"Understanding them through stellar modeling should give a big insight into the early stages of the evolution of our galaxy and possibly the universe in general."

Dr Campbell thanked his supervisor Professor John Lattanzio from the School of Mathematical Sciences in the Faculty of Science, and his fellow PhD students for their inspiration and support.

Dr Campbell is currently working as a postdoctoral researcher at the Academia Sinica Institute of Astronomy and Astrophysics (ASIAA) in Taipei, Taiwan.