Three years after a devastating fire, Australia's Mount Stromlo Observatory is well on the road to a Phoenix-like recovery. MOUNT STROMLO, CANBERRA—The loss didn't sink in until Rachel Campbell saw the charred remains for herself. Then a Ph.D. candidate at the Research School of Astronomy and Astrophysics (RSAA) of Australia National University (ANU), Campbell had been wrapping up a search for large objects beyond Neptune that, she hoped, would challenge conventional notions of planet formation. When wildfires swept over Mount Stromlo on 18 January 2003, she heard that RSAA's mountaintop observatory had been "damaged." Only when the staff was allowed to visit several days later did Campbell discover that the 50-inch Great Melbourne Telescope she had been using, along with her computer with 3 years' worth of analyzed data, had been "totally destroyed."
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