New Statistical Techniques for Galactic Archaeology

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This project aims to develop methods that will enable us to exploit new astronomical data. A revolution is under way in stellar astronomy, with new space satellites and Australian survey instruments about to reveal the composition of millions of stars. These data hold the promise of disentangling the origin of our galaxy through identification of star-forming groups that have long ago dispersed into our galaxy. We can also learn about the nuclear and stellar processes that were active in long-dead stars, and hence explain why the Universe is the way it is. This project aims to extend the powerful Minimum Message Length method, never before used in astronomy, to handle this data. This would put us in a unique position to extract new knowledge from the data that will arrive in the next one to five years.