Indigenous star knowledge

Aboriginal and islander Australians have been watching the stars in our night skies for tens of thousands of years. They’ve developed their own knowledge of star patterns and constellations, and those patterns are often completely different to the 88 constellations named in western science.

But at the moment, much of the indigenous knowledge of stars is largely unrecognised.

Dr Duane Hamacher is trying to change that. He’s an astronomer and Senior Research Fellow at Melbourne’s Monash Indigenous Centre,