Welcome
Educators guide:
Agency Website
There is a strong connection between space and Australia's Indigenous peoples, who are widely recognised as the world's oldest astronomers. For more than 65,000 years, the sky has been critical to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples for cultural storytelling; to inform calendars, navigation, and weather prediction; and in determining seasonal activities around food and movement.
At first glance, the Australian Space Agency's logo appears to be a collection of colourful dots, outlining a satellite view of Australia. But hidden within are eight significant Indigenous constellations that can be seen when looking out across Australian skies. This serves to capture Australia's powerful cultural heritage and the spirit of the Agency—one that will look to space to provide real improvements for life here on Earth.
Each colour depicts a different Indigenous constellation, representing stories from different Indigenous groups from around our country.
You may also notice the Emu in the Sky. This is not a constellation so much as a dark patch of sky between the stars that we can see in the Milky Way. The Emu holds great significance to many Indigenous groups, representing creator spirits watching over the land and helping Indigenous people predict what was happening in the world around them. The Emu in the Sky's orientation changes throughout the year - from sitting to running. Using this position as a guide, Indigenous people knew whether they should be hunting for Emus (when the Emu in the Sky was running) or collecting their eggs (when it was sitting down).
Another relatively well-known constellation is the Seven Sisters—the seven brightest stars in the Pleiades star cluster in the Taurus constellation. This group of stars have been important to the cultural stories and legends of many groups all around the world—you may even recognise them by their Japanese name, Subaru! In Australian Indigenous cultures, the Star Dreaming story of the Seven Sisters is one of the most widespread, with its songline covering more than half the width of the continent and travelling across different language groups. Different parts of the story are recognised among different groups, however it is typically seen to depict the seven Napaljarri sisters who must launch themselves from the Earth into the night sky every night in an attempt to run away from a man of another skin group who wants to take one of the sisters as his wife.
Agency web links:
Indigenous Astronomical Traditions:
Australian Indigenous Astronomy:
