The research, led by the International Centre for Radio Astronomy Research in Perth found that fast-rotating spiral galaxies are flat and thin while equally sized galaxies that rotate slowly are fatter.

The study was published in the prestigious Astrophysical Journal and was part of “The Evolving Universe” research theme of the ARC Centre of Excellence for All-sky Astrophysics.

ICRAR Research Associate Professor Danail Obreschkow, from The University of Western Australia, said it is a much-debated mystery why galaxies look so different to each other.

“Some galaxies are very flat discs of stars and others are more bulging or even spherical,” he said.

“Much of the last century of research has been dedicated to understanding this diversity of galaxies in the Universe and with this paper we’ve made a step towards understanding how this came about,  by showing that the rotation of spiral galaxies is a key driver for their shape.”

The study looked at 16 galaxies – all between 10 million and 50 million light years from Earth - using data from a survey called THINGS.

“The THINGS survey shows you the cold gas in the galaxies, not only where it is but how it moves,” Dr Obreschkow said.

“That’s a crucial point if you want to measure the spin, you can’t just take a photograph, you have to take a special picture that shows you the motion.”

Dr Obreschkow said the shape of a spiral galaxy is determined by both its spin and its mass and if you leave a galaxy on its own for billions of years both quantities will stay the same.

He said the way galaxies are formed looks a bit similar to a carousel made of an elastic disc.

“If the carousel is at rest, the elastic disc is quite small,” Dr Obreschkow said. “But when the whole thing is spinning the elastic disc becomes larger because it’s feeling the effects of centrifugal force.”

Our own Milky Way is a relatively flat disc with only a small bulge, the shape of which can be seen in the night sky.

“The white band of the Milky Way across the sky is a relatively thin band of constant thickness.

However when you look right at the centre near the Sagittarius constellation

you can actually see a thickening of the Milky Way, which is the bulge,” Dr Obreschkow said.

He and co-author, Swinburne University Professor Karl Glazebrook, were able to measure the effect of spin on galaxies more than ten times better than anyone previously.

The study used data collected at the Karl G Jansky Very Large Array in the United States, one of the most famous radio telescopes in the world and a significant pathfinder for the Square Kilometre Array the centre of our galaxy.

The Milky Way Galaxy,  will be visible from Maitland just after midnight rising from the east and will be most pronounced just before the dawn.

It has been a long time coming but researchers in the US have overcome a key barrier to making nuclear fusion reactors a reality.

In results published in Nature, scientists have shown that they can now produce more energy from fusion reactions than they put into igniting nuclear fuel for an experiment.

The use of fusion as a source of energy remains a long way off, but the latest development is an important step towards that goal.

Nuclear fusion is the process that powers the sun and billions of other stars in the universe.

If mastered, it could provide an unlimited source of clean energy because the raw materials are plentiful and the operation produces no carbon emissions.

During the fusion process, smaller atoms fuse into larger ones releasing huge amounts of energy.

To achieve this on Earth, scientists have to create conditions similar to those at the centre of the sun, which involves creating very high pressures and temperatures.

There are two ways to achieve this: one uses lasers and is called inertial confinement fusion (ICF), another deploys magnets and is called magnetic confinement fusion (MCF).

Omar Hurricane and colleagues at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory opted for ICF with the help of 192 high-energy lasers at the National Ignition Facility in the US, which was designed specifically to boost fusion research.

A typical fusion reaction at the facility takes weeks of preparation. But the fusion reaction is completed in an instant (150 picoseconds, to be precise, which is less than a billionth of a second).

In that moment, at the core of the reaction the pressure is 150 billion times atmospheric pressure.

The density and temperature of the plasma created is nearly three times that at the centre of the sun.

The most critical part of the reaction, and one that had been a real concern for Hurricane's team, is the shape of the fuel capsule.

The capsule is made from a polymer and is about 2mm in diameter - about the size of a paper pinhead.

On the inside it is coated with deuterium and tritium - isotopes of hydrogen - that are frozen to be in a solid state.

This capsule is placed inside a gold cylinder, where the 192 lasers are fired.

The lasers hit the gold container which emit X-rays, which heat the pellet and make it implode instantly, causing a fusion reaction.

According to Debbie Callahan, a co-author of the study: "When the lasers are fired, the capsule is compressed 35 times.

That is like compressing a basketball to the size of a pea."

The compression produces immense pressure and temperature leading to a fusion reaction.

Problems with the process were overcome last September, when, for the first time, Hurricane was able to produce more energy output from a fusion reaction than the fuel put into it.

Since then he has been able to repeat the experiment.

Hurricane's current output, although more than the hydrogen fuel put into the reaction, is still 100 times less than the total energy put into the system, most of which is in the form of lasers.

Yet, this is a big achievement because reaching ignition just became easier.

Hurricane hasn't yet reached the stated goal of the NIF that is to achieve "ignition", where nuclear fusion generates as much energy as the lasers supply.

At that point it would be possible to make a sustainable power plant based on the technology.

With a Hurricane in control mankind must get a less polluting more efficient and localised source of electrical power.