The heyday of galaxy fomation and evolution in the Universe occurred billions of years ago when proto-galaxies were condensing from primordial gas and merging in violent collisions and tidal interactions. However, clues to how the galaxies we observe today were constructed can be found in some of the biggest, brightest and oldest galaxies in the universe.

Catherine Farage, an ANU PhD student at Mount Stromlo Observatory, is studying giant galaxies that lurk in the centres of large clusters of galaxies. "In particular, we're looking at features in these systems that hint at ongoing processes similar to those that may have governed galaxy development in the early universe," she reports.

"We think every massive galaxy contains, and indeed grew up together with, a super-massive black hole in its core", she says. "When material falls into a galaxy and then in toward the black hole at the centre, a huge amount of energy is produced - the nucleus becomes `active', and begins to eject energy and material in powerful jets and bubbles that expand from the core through the galaxy and into the surrounding environment."

The outgoing radiation and jets disrupt and heat material in and around the galaxy, and affect the formation of stars and the infall of further material. This cycle of accretion, nuclear activity and outflow may significantly influence the galaxy's growth.

With her supervisors, Dr. Peter McGregor and Prof. Mike Dopita, Catherine plans to use a unique new instrument, the Wide Field Spectrograph (WiFeS), that is being built at the RSAA for the 2.3m telescope at the Siding Spring Observatory. They will investigate extended nebulae that surround many of the central cluster galaxies and are a result of the complex interaction between an active black hole and its host galaxy.

WiFeS will detect a broad and detailed spectrum of the optical emission from across the extent of a galaxy and this information will be used to study the properties of the emitting gas. "We're working toward understanding how the structures we see are linked to the processes of building a galaxy," she says.

Catherine's interest in space science and astronomy grew during studies in mechanical engineering and physics at the University of Queensland and she was then attracted to the ANU by the astronomy Honours program offered at the Research School for Astronomy and Astrophysics. She began her PhD at the school in August 2007.