If anyone had asked students from the Mid West what they did at school recently, they would have got an astonishing answer: weighing a galaxy.

Scientists from The University of Western Australia have again scooped the State’s annual Science Awards with world-renowned astrophysicist Professor Peter Quinn leading the accolades as the 2012 Scientist of the Year.

The final round of judging for the state's annual WA Science Awards will again be dominated by researchers and projects from The University of Western Australia.

A powerful new supercomputer that will give researchers unprecedented access to parallel processing and data-intensive computing will be launched at The University of Western Australia tomorrow - 50 years after UWA acquired the state's first digital computer.

The amount of computer data generated by the entire world in a whole year will need to be stored in a single day for the world's most powerful telescope - the Square Kilometre Array (SKA) - and the International Centre for Radio Astronomy Research (ICRAR) is gearing up to meet that unprecedented need.

Australia moves a step closer to the top ranks of global supercomputing with The University of Western Australia's purchase of the "Fornax" supercomputer, allowing scientists to explore new vistas of high-powered data-intensive research.

The University of Western Australia and the Spanish National Research Council have signed a Memorandum of Understanding that will result in collaboration and PhD positions being offered in four broad areas of research.