Blak History Month🎙Indigenous Astronomy: Reading the Stars, Guiding the Land.

Long before Western telescopes scanned the skies, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples were already master astronomers — reading the stars not just for wonder, but for life, law, and survival.

Across the continent, First Nations communities developed sophisticated knowledge systems based on the movements of the stars, planets, moon, and sun. This wasn’t stargazing for leisure — it was deeply embedded in seasonal calendars, navigation, ceremony, and story.

In the skies of the Yolŋu people in Arnhem Land, the rising of Scorpius signals the start of the dry season. The Boorong people of Victoria mapped constellations like Collowgullouric War (the kangaroo) long before they had Latin names. And across many nations, the Emu in the Sky — formed not by stars, but by the dark spaces between them — guided when to harvest emu eggs.

This knowledge was oral, intergenerational, and observational, passed down through songlines and Dreaming stories that linked sky and Country. Unlike Western science, which often separates disciplines, Indigenous astronomy is holistic — it connects sky, land, people, and spirit.

Today, modern astrophysicists are beginning to recognise the depth of this ancient wisdom. Far from being “myth,” it is a science thousands of years old, still relevant, still living — and still guiding.