AllA University of Southern Queensland PhD student has won the chance to use the James Webb telescope to further his research on white dwarfs.
Alexander Venner said the news “almost felt like winning the lottery” after he became one of only four successful Australian projects in the last bidding round.
It significantly follows Venner being part of a team which calculated the age of a white dwarf going through crystallisation – a world-first.
Venner will use his time to collect data from James Webb to try and detect a planet orbiting a white dwarf.
Once burning bright like our sun, white dwarfs are a type of dead star which have exhausted their fuel supplies and ejected their outer atmospheres.
