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Museums Victoria

Museums Victoria is responsible for the state’s scientific and cultural collections, providing public access through three museums.

We also oversee a wide range of research programs, the continued development of the state’s collections, and run major education and research based websites.

We are the largest public museums organisation in Australia.

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Displaying 121 - 132 of 132 articles
An artist’s impression shows a pair of wildly misaligned planet-forming gas discs around both the young stars in the binary system HK Tauri. R. Hurt (NASA/JPL-Caltech/IPAC)

From dust clouds to wobbly orbits for new planets

Jonti Horner, University of Southern Queensland and Tanya Hill, Museums Victoria

New observations of a youthful binary star system, reported today in the journal Nature, may help to explain one of exoplanetary science’s greatest unanswered questions – the peculiar orbits of so many…
Visualisation of Venus Express during the aerobraking manoeuvre into the atmosphere of Venus. ESA–C. Carreau

Venus Express is ready to dive into a hostile atmosphere

Tanya Hill, Museums Victoria

The Venus Express spacecraft has spent eight productive years orbiting the planet Venus and is now ready to take the plunge. Its orbit is slowly being lowered and from Wednesday it will repeatedly dive…
Earth was treated to a magnificent show during the Perseid meteor shower in 2010. Will the northern hemisphere get a similar show with the Camelopardalis shower on Saturday? ESO/S. Guisard

A night’s tale: will a new meteor shower light up northern skies?

Jonti Horner, University of Southern Queensland and Tanya Hill, Museums Victoria

Across North America, Europe and Japan, skywatchers will be out in force this weekend with high hopes of catching a never-before-seen meteor shower. Predicted to peak this Saturday, May 24, the shower…
The strongest magnets in the universe – but how does a magnetar form? (Artist’s impression of magnetar in the cluster Westerlund 1.) ESO/L. Calçada

A rare magnetic star is born – with a push in the right direction

Tanya Hill, Museums Victoria and Bryan Gaensler, University of Sydney

Magnetars are stars that are incredibly dense, rapidly spinning, amazingly hot and – as their name suggests – are the most magnetic objects known in the universe. The magnetic field on the surface of a…
Beta Pictoris b spins faster than the fastest spinning planet in our solar system. ESO/L. Calçada & N. Risinger (skysurvey.org)

A different spin – exoplanet’s ‘day’ is measured for the first time

Tanya Hill, Museums Victoria and Jonti Horner, University of Southern Queensland

Over the past two decades, almost 1,500 exoplanets have been discovered orbiting distant stars – but Dutch astronomers have determined for the very first time just how fast one of those exoplanets is spinning…
A solar eclipse as seen in Albuquerque, New Mexico, in 2012 – similar to what many Australians will see this afternoon (weather permitting, of course). Robert Adams/Flickr

Catch the sun: are you ready for a partial solar eclipse today?

Tanya Hill, Museums Victoria and Michael J. I. Brown, Monash University

Due to a rare alignment of events, many Australians will today experience a second eclipse this month. A partial solar eclipse will be visible from across Australia later this afternoon, following the…
A single Lyrids meteor captured during last year’s shower. Flickr/Mike Lewinski

The Lyrids meteor shower should put on a show overnight

Tanya Hill, Museums Victoria and Michael J. I. Brown, Monash University

If you’re willing to rise early tomorrow morning then there’s the chance to see a meteor shower, known as the Lyrids, which may been responsible for a bright light seen recently over Russia. A dashcam…
Dinosaur remains have been found on all continents, including Australia. Peter Trusler

Three decades, 37 bones: the long hunt for Victorian dinosaurs

Thomas H Rich, Museums Victoria and Roger Benson, University of Cambridge

Dinosaur remains have been found on every continent on Earth and we know these creatures dominated the planet’s ecosystems for around 140 million years. But despite their abundance elsewhere, few discoveries…

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