For those not game enough to climb the world’s most leaningest tower, there are plenty of interactive exhibits in the Discovery Centre to have fun with. There are heaps of strange looking devices, powerful magnets, and long pipes to shout through.

Watching a tennis ball being sucked into a deadly black hole.

Even the local graffiti artists require university degrees.

So if you enjoy looking through big pipes, and making funny noises, you’ll love this place.  This strange blue device bent light, and then debited my credit card.

Our planet is constantly under threat from rogue asteroids, and deadly gamma ray bursts. Fortunately, all of these dangerous cosmic events can be detected by the Gravity Centre’s, Zadko Telescope. Gamma ray bursts are the most violent explosions in the Universe since the Big Bang. Gamma Ray astronomy is still in it’s infancy, though these high energy radiation bursts are thought to be released following the explosion of giant stars.

GAMMA RAY ALERT:  In January 2009 a team of astrophysicists using the Zadko Telescope detected light from a deadly gamma ray explosion, that occurred over 11 billion years ago! Lucky for us, all the gamma ray bursts detected so far, have occurred in distant galaxies. If one pops up in our galaxy, it would spell bad news for life on Earth. There are roughly three gamma ray bursts in the Universe each day, so it is nice to know that the guys in the Zadko are keeping an eye out for these things.

If you find all this cataclysmic astronomy unsettling, you could always book an evening at the Southern Cross Cosmos Centre. Here you can look at more friendly bodies, such as the Moon or your star sign. We visited the centre at midday and were rather disappointed by the poor star count. However, we did manage to snap this unusual smiley conjunction of Venus, Jupiter and the Moon, which broke the uneasy tension following our introduction to gamma ray bursts.

Smiley Moon: Welcome proof there are greater forces at work up there. Venus is in the top left, next to Jupiter. 

It was comforting to know that while we were dropping water balloons off the tower, there was some serious work being done downstairs in the Gravity Labs. Hidden safely away from the tourist exhibits, is the top secret Australian International Gravity Observatory (AIGO). It is from here that a crack team of leading scientists are working to ultimately detect, and interpret gravity waves. These waves are formed from gravitational disturbances, which include supernova explosions, black holes, and ultimately the BIG BANG. Gravity Waves are ripples which travel through space, and virtually any object they encounter on the way. Yes… that includes you and me. They stretch and shrink everything they pass through. However, not even an Emo can detect these minute vibrations, so scientists are developing something even more sensitive. Using a special Laser Interferometer, our scientists hope to listen to gravity waves from the “Big Bang”, and possibly eavesdrop on extraterrestrial communications. The vibrating gravity waves are the sounds of the universe, and may hold the answers to life , the universe, and everything.

The vibrations generated by gravity waves are extremely faint, meaning Laser Interferometers need to be incredibly sensitive, and isolated from other disturbances. The silica sand of the Wallingup Plain is rather good at absorbing earthly seismic waves.

The detector assembly is made up of two really long vacuum pipes, situated at right angles to each other. A super bright laser beam is split in two, and sent down the pipes. The beams are reflected back by super mirrors, with such precision they would ordinarily cancel each other out!

By a stroke of good luck, gravity waves vibrate, and this upsets the perfect equilibrium when they pass through the laser beams. This excites the laser light, and the resulting variation in brightness is noticed by light sensors. This disturbance is amplified, and sent to a speaker, where a group of super excited scientists eagerly listen in. The longer the vacuum pipes are, the better they become at detecting Gravity Waves. This is because the wave disturbance in the laser beam is more pronounced, with increased length. Size matters when it comes to Laser Interferometers, and our scientists have a 5km pipe dream. They are presently happy with their 80 metre system, or so they say.

Gravity Wave detection requires a worldwide array of laser interferometers, of which the Gingin Observatory is the Southern Hemisphere arm. Using a network of detectors around the world, the direction of a wave can then be calculated, by observing it’s varying arrival times at different locations.

The World's biggest soccer ball.

Next door to the Discovery Centre is the mysterious Cosmology Gallery. The gallery challenges your mind, with the big questions about life, the universe, and why is the roof shaped like a giant 20 metre “buckyball”? You will leave the building asking more questions than when you entered, so you might just want to sit this one out. It is still possible to walk around the inside of the buckyball, and not ask yourself the big questions. You could always think about lunch in the Stargazers Café.

Stargazers Café:  Starting to feel hungry after all that scientific activity? Why not experiment with the menu in the Stargazers Café. The space time continuum definitely slows down in this place. You only have to order the Cosmic Chicken Burger to find this out.  The burger arrives with a Big Bang, though just like the universe, you’ll struggle to reach the end. If I hadn’t been worrying so much about the next gamma ray burst, I might have finished the chips. As far as Top Secret Deep Space Discovery Centre restaurants go, we’ll give Stargazers a galaxy full of stars. 

LOCATION:  The Gravity Discovery Centre is a one hour drive north of Perth.  You can let the gravity pull you in, though Life On Perth recommends using a road map for the tricky bits.