For tens of thousands of years Aboriginal Australians have studied the skies. The Emu in the Sky, formed by dust lanes in the Milky Way, is important to Aboriginal people across Australia. Today’s astronomers explore these same dust clouds to understand how stars and planets are born.
This image shows the Emu in the Sky rising above an ancient rock engraving located in, Ku-ring-gai Chase National Park, north of Sydney. The emu in this engraving has its head stretched forwards and legs swept back – is this the Emu in the Sky?
In this photograph, the Emu in the Sky is shown standing upright above her engraving. This only occurs once a year, at the time when Emus lay their eggs - an important food for the Ku-ring-gai people.
These ancient Australians may well have been the world’s first astronomers...
