Prof. Tara Murphy is an Australian Astrophysicist and CAASTRO (the ARC Centre of Excellence for All-sky Astrophysics) chief investigator working in the School of Physics at the

University of Sydney The University of Sydney (USYD), also known as Sydney University, or informally Sydney Uni, is a public research university located in Sydney, Australia. Founded in 1850, it is the oldest university in Australia and is one of the country's si ...

. Murphy led a group that first confirmed radio emissions from the 2017 Neutron Star Merger event which provided evidence for a global scientific announcement in the field of

gravitational waves Gravitational waves are waves of the intensity of gravity generated by the accelerated masses of an orbital binary system that Wave propagation, propagate as waves outward from their source at the speed of light. They were first proposed by Oliv ...

Education

Murphy completed a Bachelor of Science at the University of Sydney and a PhD (Astrophysics) at the University of Edinburgh.

Career

In 2013, Murphy co-founded a start-up company called Grok Learning which promotes the easy learning of computational methods to high school students (and teachers). During the global effort to record the 2017 Neutron Star Merger, Murphy led a group at the

that confirmed the first radio signals of

gravitational wave Gravitational waves are waves of the intensity of gravity generated by the accelerated masses of an orbital binary system that propagate as waves outward from their source at the speed of light. They were first proposed by Oliver Heaviside in 1 ...

s that were caused by two neutron stars colliding in a galaxy 130 million

light-year A light-year, alternatively spelled light year, is a large unit of length used to express astronomical distances and is equivalent to about 9.46 trillion kilometers (), or 5.88 trillion miles ().One trillion here is taken to be 1012 ...

s from

Earth Earth is the third planet from the Sun and the only astronomical object known to harbor life. While large volumes of water can be found throughout the Solar System, only Earth sustains liquid surface water. About 71% of Earth's surfa ...

. This discovery was made 15 days after these gravitational waves were first reported by an international team of scientists and astronomers. In 2019, Murphy and their PhD student gathered data using the CSIRO's

Australia Telescope Compact Array The Australia Telescope Compact Array (ATCA) is a radio telescope operated by CSIRO at the Paul Wild Observatory, twenty five kilometres (16 mi) west of the town of Narrabri in New South Wales, Australia. Its opening ceremony took place on ...

Narrabri Narrabri ( ) is a locality and seat of Narrabri Shire local government area in the North West Slopes, New South Wales, Australia on the Namoi River, northwest of Sydney. It sits on the junction of the Kamilaroi Highway and the Newell Highway. At ...

New South Wales ) , nickname = , image_map = New South Wales in Australia.svg , map_caption = Location of New South Wales in AustraliaCoordinates: , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name = Australia , established_title = Before federation , es ...

to observe radio emissions created by a

shockwave In physics, a shock wave (also spelled shockwave), or shock, is a type of propagating disturbance that moves faster than the local speed of sound in the medium. Like an ordinary wave, a shock wave carries energy and can propagate through a me ...

from a mysterious cosmic 'cow' explosion, and potential birth of a black hole. Their findings suggested that there was a magnetar at the core of the

supernova A supernova is a powerful and luminous explosion of a star. It has the plural form supernovae or supernovas, and is abbreviated SN or SNe. This transient astronomical event occurs during the last evolutionary stages of a massive star or when ...

, and that this event was different from the typical

as there was energy that continued to power the explosion allowing the 'cow' to inexplicably become brighter with time.

Honours and recognition

* 2019

ARC ARC may refer to: Business * Aircraft Radio Corporation, a major avionics manufacturer from the 1920s to the '50s * Airlines Reporting Corporation, an airline-owned company that provides ticket distribution, reporting, and settlement services * ...

Discovery Project: ''"Radio follow-up of gravitational wave events"'' * 2016 ARC Future Fellow: ''"The radio transient sky in real time"'' * 2012 Young Tall Poppy Award * 2011

Discovery Project: ''"Extreme Events: Mining the Radio Sky for Gamma-ray Bursts with Intelligent Algorithms"'' * 2010

Super Science: ''"New Dimensions in Radio Astronomy: Mining Sparse Datasets with the Australian SKA Pathfinder"''

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Murphy, Tara Living people Year of birth missing (living people) University of Sydney alumni Academic staff of the University of Sydney Australian astrophysicists 21st-century Australian astronomers