Spacetime With Stuart Gary

Stream episodes on demand from www.bitesz.com or www.spacetimewithstuartgary.com (both mobile friendly). *The incredible shrinking planet Mercury The planet Mercury is shrinking according to a new analysis of data gathered by a NASA spacecraft. The findings are based on a series of small previously undetected cliff-like tectonic structures on the planet’s surface known as thrust fault scarps. *Rosetta’s grand finale After a journey lasting over 12 and a half years Rosetta’s mission is finally over. Rosetta discovered over 60 molecules, 34 of which had never been found before on a comet. These include oxygen and the amino acid glycine, a basic building block of life. It also confirmed that Earth’s water probably didn’t come from comets – but rather asteroids. *Solar Minimum on its way Over the last few days AR2597 -- the last remaining sunspot group on the surface of our local star the Sun – disappeared. The blank solar face – the fourth this year -- is a sign that the Sun’s 11 year solar cycle is now heading

Stream episodes on demand from www,bitesz.com or www.spacetimewithstuartgary.com (both mobile friendly). Stuart here with the Show Notes for Series 9 Episode 68. You can find an enhanced version, including photos to accompany this episode, at http://www.bitesz.com/spacetime-show-notes *Possible Water Plumes on Jupiter's Moon Europa Astronomers using NASA's Hubble Space Telescope have imaged what may be water vapour plumes erupting off the surface of Jupiter's moon Europa. The new findings support pervious Hubble observations suggesting the icy moon erupts with high altitude water vapour plumes. *SpaceX details its future plans for Mars SpaceX and Tesla boss Elon Musk has finally announced his long term vision for missions to Mars. The PayPal entrepreneur has unveiled plans for a fleet of massive reusable spacecraft -- each capable of carrying between 100 and 250 people and 450 tonnes of supplies to begin the process of colonizing the red planet. *Large meteor streaks across the night skies of central Queensla

Stream episodes on demand from www.bitesz.com or www.spacetimewithstuartgary.com (both sites mobile friendly). Hi....Stuart with the Show Notes for Series 19 Episode 67: *Rosetta’s suicide death plunge about to begin After a mission lasting more than 12 and a half years -- the European Space Agency’s Rosetta probe is now on its final orbital trajectory which will send it on a suicide death plunge onto the surface of Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko on September 30. *Pluto’s heart shedding light on a possible buried ocean A giant asteroid impact on the distant frozen world of Pluto -- deep in its past -- is offering new insights into the possibility of an ocean beneath the dwarf planet’s icy surface. *New study of photon radiation impacts on Earth A new study combining multiple telescopes at different wavelengths has successfully made the most precise measurements ever undertaken of the total amount of radiation hitting the Earth -- finding that the planet is bombarded by about sextillion photons per square met

Stream episodes on demand from www.bitesz.com or www.spacetimewithstuartgary.com (both mobile friendly). Hi, Stuart here with the Show Notes for Series 19 Episode 65: *Quantum entanglement and the speed of light New research indicates that quantum entanglement -- the effect Albert Einstein referred to as spooky action at a distance -- isn’t just stranger than we imagine – it’s stranger than we can imagine. *A new way to determine the age of stars Scientists have developed a new way of understanding how stars like our Sun evolve. The new research is a first attempt to build a comprehensive model for the activity and evolution of these stars. *Discovery of an impossible cloud in the atmosphere of Titan Astronomers have detected a puzzling ice cloud that’s apparently formed out of thin air in the Saturnian moon Titan. The cloud -- detected in Titan's stratosphere -- is composed of a compound of carbon and nitrogen in the chemical cocktail that colours the giant moon's hazy, brownish-orange atmosphere. You can fi

Stream episodes on demand from www.bitesz.com or www.spacetimewithstuartgary.com (both mobile friendly) Hi everyone, Stuart with the Show Notes for Series 19 Episode 65: *Martian lakes around far longer than thought There’s new evidence from Mars that lakes and snowmelt-fed streams on the red planet surface may have formed as recently as 2 to 3 billion years ago -- much later than previously thought possible. The new findings show that recently discovered lakes and streams appeared on the red planet’s northern Arabia Terra region roughly a billion years after a well-documented, earlier era of wet conditions on ancient Mars. *Ceres pyramid mystery solved A mysterious pyramid structure discovered by NASA’s Dawn spacecraft on the surface of the asteroid Ceres is now believed to be a recently active cryovolcano. The findings indicate the volcano which has been named Ahuna Mons – has only a few impact craters on its flanks -- indicating it was formed fairly recently -- within the last couple of hundred million yea

Stream on demand from www.bitesz.com or www.spacetimewithstuartgary.com (both mobile friendly) Hi everyone...Stuart with the Show Notes for Series 19 Episode 64: *The most detailed ever map of the universe The largest ever all sky celestial survey has published its first catalogue – pinning down the exact three dimensional positions and brightness of over a billion stars. The data from the European Space Agency’s Gaia spacecraft will form part of the most detailed map of the Milky Way galaxy ever created. *New gravitational wave research centre Astronomers are still coming to terms with the scientific implications arising from the historic first ever detections of gravitational waves. Now the Australian Research Council has provided 31.3 million dollars in federal funding for a new centre of excellence at Swinburne University to study gravitational waves to better understand the extreme physics of black holes and warped space-time. *X-rays detected streaming from Pluto Astronomers using NASA’s Chandra space t

Stream episodes on demand from www.bitesz.com or www.spacetimewithstuartgary.com (both mobile friendly). Enhanced Show Notes, complete with accompanying photos, can be found at http://www.bitesz.com/spacetime-show-notes Subscribe to my new YouTube playlist at https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLhpBkuHSLfIRnliLB12HoC1QE0rwr8qRS Here's what's in Episode 63: *NASA’s OSIRIS-REx blasts into space on a mission to rendezvous with a potentially deadly asteroid NASA’s Osiris-Rex spacecraft has successfully launched into space on a mission to rendezvous with the potentially deadly asteroid Bennu. The half kilometre wide mountain sized space rock -- which passes uncomfortably close to Earth every six years – has a 1 in 2700 chance of hitting the Earth in the 22nd century. *Rare fossil of the early Milky Way discovered Astronomers have discovered a fossilized remnant of the early Milky Way. The stellar system reported in the Astrophysical Journal, was discovered The system -- named Terzan 5 -- is located 19 000 light

Stream episodes from www.bitesz.com or www.spacetimewithstuartgary.com (both mobile friendly). Subscribe to our new YouTube Channel at https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLhpBkuHSLfIRnliLB12HoC1QE0rwr8qRS Hi...Stuart with the Show Notes for Episode 62....and for enhanced Show Notes including pictures to accompany this episode visit http://www.bitesz.com/spacetime-show-notes *Philae found Rosetta’s missing Philae lander has finally been found – less than a month before the end of the spacecraft’s historic mission to Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko. The tiny lander went missing during its touchdown on the surface of the five kilometre wide comet back in November 2014. *New Trans Neptunian objects found in the search for Planet Nine Astronomers searching the outer solar system for a proposed ninth planet have detected several never-before-seen small trans Neptunian objects at extreme distances from the Sun in the outer solar system. The new discoveries could help planet hunters narrow down the size and distan

Stream episodes from www.bitesz.com or www.spacetimewithstuartgary.com (mobile friendly) Hi every one...Stuart here with the show notes for episode 61....and don't forget you can see enhanced show notes including pictures to accompany this episode at http://www.bitesz.com/spacetime-show-notes *All system’s go for NASA’s mission to a potentially deadly asteroid The final countdown is underway for tomorrow’s launch of NASA’s OSIRIS-REx spacecraft on a seven year journey to visit the potentially deadly Near Earth Asteroid Bennu. The half kilometre wide space rock has a 1 in 2500 chance of impacting the Earth in the 22nd century *Has the alien megastructure star mystery been solved? Astronomers think they may finally have solved the mystery surrounding a weird erratically flickering and dimming star -- whose strange behaviour -- sparked speculation that it could have been our first sign of an advanced alien civilization. Astronomers now think that what they’re actually seeing is a new stage of stellar evolution i

Stream on demand from www.bitesz.com or www.spacetimewithstuartgary.com (both mobile friendly). Have you subscribe to our new YouTube channel yet? Stuart here with the Show Notes for Spacetime Series 19 Episode 60: *First stars formed later than previously thought New research has discovered that the first stars in the Universe began shining far later than previously thought. The findings – based on new data from the European Space Agency’s Planck satellite -- also indicate that these first generation stars were the only sources needed to re-ionize the entire universe – giving us the cosmos we see today. *New study raising puzzling questions about galaxy evolution A new study charting the rise and fall of galaxies over 90 percent of cosmic history -- has discovered galactic diversity in the early universe was similar to what astronomers see today. The new findings raise some profound questions about galactic evolution – how could galaxies which appear old and no longer make stars – exist in such a young unive

Stream this and previous episodes on demand from www.bitesz.com/spacetime or www.spacetimewithstuartgary.com (both sites mobile friendly) Hi everyone...Stuart with the Show Notes for Series 19 Episode 59: *Dark matter galaxy discovered Astronomers have discovered a galaxy composed almost entirely of Dark Matter. The galaxy -- Dragonfly 44 – is about 70 thousand light years wide and has about the same mass as our own Milky Way galaxy -- but with far fewer stars – and with some 99.99 percent of its mass composed of dark matter. *New study of time symmetry A new theory to explain why the universe is symmetrical – while time appears to be asymmetrical. The research examines a mysterious effect -- called 'T violation' -- a violation of time reversal symmetry -- which could be the origin of time evolution and conservation laws. *Mystery SETI Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence signal detected Astronomers are trying to determine the cause of a mysterious signal picked up by Russian scientists involved in the SE

Stream on demand from www.bitesz.com or www.spacetimewithstuartgary.com (both mobile friendly) Hi everyone...Stuart with the Show Notes for Series 19 Episode 58...and what a week it's been... *Earth sized planet discovered in the habitable zone of our nearest neighbouring star Astronomers have now confirmed the discovery of an Earth sized planet orbiting in the habitable zone of Proxima Centauri – our nearest neighbouring star system. As we reported a week ago on SpaceTime -- the newly detected planet named Proxima B is about 1.3 times the mass of the Earth and is orbiting in its host star’s habitable zone – temperatures would allow liquid water to exist on the surface of a terrestrial or rocky planet. *Seasonal streaks on Mars may not be water after all Seasonal dark streaks on Mars known as Recurring Slope Lineae which have become one of the hottest topics in interplanetary research don't hold much water after all -- according to new data from NASA’s Mars Odyssey spacecraft which is orbiting the red planet.

Stream on demand from www.bitesz.com or www.spacetimewithstuartgary.com (both mobile friendly). Welcome to Series 19 Episode 57 - Stuart here with the Show Notes...and to see enhanced Show Notes, including photos to accompany this episode, visit http://www.bitesz.com/spacetime-show-notes *Scientists see a classical nova awaken from hibernation Astronomers have just had their first complete look at an exploding star called a Nova. Novae are the most frequent and among the brightest type of stellar explosions known. *Cassini Finds Flooded Canyons on Titan NASA's Cassini spacecraft has found deep, steep-sided canyons on Saturn's moon Titan that are flooded with liquid hydrocarbons. The findings represent the first direct evidence of the presence of liquid-filled channels on Titan, as well as the first observation of canyons hundreds of metres deep. *More evidence of ancient Martian lakes discovered in Gale Crater A new study has found that mineral veins found in Gale Crater were formed by the evaporation of anci

Stream on demand from www.bitesz.com (mobile friendly) or www.spacetimewithstuartgary.com Hi, Stuart here with the Show Notes for Series 19 Episode 56: *Rumours of a habitable zone planet detected around our nearest neighbouring star system There are growing rumours claiming the detection of a terrestrial Earth like planet within the habitable zone of our nearest neighbouring star system Proxima Centauri. A report in Germany’s respected Der Spiegel news magazine claims the discovery was made by astronomers with the European Southern Observatory’s La Silla telescope in Chile. *Scientists use a simulated black hole to demonstrate Hawking radiation A scientist using a simulated black hole may just have demonstrated existence of Hawking radiation – the hypothesis claiming black holes evaporate over time. The research could open a window linking Albert Einstein’s General Relativity Theory with Quantum Mechanics – finally pointing the way to quantum gravity. *Physicists confirm possible discovery of fifth force of

Stream this and previous episodes on demand from www.bitesz.com (mobile friendly) or www.spacetimewithstuartgary.com Hi everyone, Stuart here with the Show Notes for Series 19 Episode 55. *Strange new outer solar system body defies scientific explanation Astronomers have just detected a new trans Neptunian object in the outer rim of the solar system on a strange highly unusual orbit. The discovery indicates the newly found object -- nicknamed Niku – has a retrograde and highly inclined orbit around the Sun. *More evidence supporting the existence of a ninth planet in our solar system Two new studies claim our solar system’s tilt could be explained by the existence of a ninth planet out beyond Neptune. The new research uses computer models to show how a hypothetical ninth planet of a specific mass and orbit would influence orbital plane or ecliptic of the solar system – causing it to tilt by six degrees in comparison to the Sun’s equator. *Neutrino’s offer new clues into why we live a matter rather than antima

Stream on demand from www.bitesz.com (mobile friendly) Hi...Stuart with the Show Notes foe Series 19 Episode 54... *Alien megastructure star still a mystery Follow up observations of a weird erratically flickering and dimming star has failed to find an explanation for the strange stellar behaviour. The star named KIC 8462852 is so unusual -- one scientist even suggested it could be our first sign of a hypothetical alien megastructure called a Dyson Sphere. *The world’s first interplanetary mining mission It’s not the Nostromo made famous in the movie Alien, but the world’s first commercial interplanetary mining mission will launch a precursor flight next year before venturing off in to deep space to mine a near Earth asteroid. Australia changing its address *Australia is about to change its address. Federal government hasn’t updated the continent’s coordinate system since 1994.causing existing GPS navigation systems to be off by about one and a half metres. *New project to study dark energy The United States

Stream on demand from www.bitesz.com (mobile friendly) Hi...Stuart with the Show Notes for Series 19 Episode 53... *A key characteristic of life discovered in space for the first time Scientists have discovered the first molecule in space that has a key attribute associated with life -- ‘handedness’ or chirality. The finding is expected to help researchers solve one of the greatest mysteries in biology -- the origin of homochirality -- and offer insights into what we can expect from life throughout the universe. *New ideas on the nature of black holes A team of scientists have developed a new way of looking at the physics of black holes. The hypothesis suggests that matter might in fact survive its foray into these space objects and come out the other side. *The most dangerous threat to humanity to provide the best meteor shower in almost 20 years This year’s Perseids meteor shower is set for its best show in nearly 20 years. Around 150 meteors an hour expected to delight sky watchers at its peak on the night

Stream on demand from www.bitesz.com or www.spacetimewithstuartgary.com (both sites mobile friendly) Hi...Stuart with the Show Notes for Series 19 Episode 52... *Giant stellar void discovered in the heart of the Milky Way Astronomers have discovered a huge region around the centre of our galaxy which is devoid of young stars. The findings provide new insights into the evolution of the Milky Way. *Mapping exotic matter inside neutron stars Scientists have opened a new window into the mystery of what lies inside neutron stars. Ultimately, the research may answer the question, whether neutron stars are composed solely of ordinary atomic nuclei, or if they contain more exotic dense de-confined quark matter. *Australian satellites being space tested prior to launch Researchers from around Australia have begun testing satellites at the Australian National University Mount Stromlo space testing facilities ahead of a mass satellite launch from the International Space Station later this year. They will be launched int

Stream on demand from www.bitesz.com or www.spacetimewithstuartgary.com ... or subscribe at any good podcatcher app. Stuart here with the Show Notes for Series 19 Episode 51: * X marks the spot at the centre of the Milky Way galaxy New evidence suggests there’s an enormous X-shaped structure made of stars within the central bulge of the Milky Way Galaxy. The discovery helps scientists better understand how the Milky Way was formed and how it’s evolved ever since. *New questions about how gullies are formed on Mars A new study claims liquid water flowing over the surface of Mars isn’t responsible for the recent formation of gullies on the red planet. The new findings are based on data from NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter spacecraft which shows no mineralogical evidence for abundant liquid water or its by-products associated with the gullies. *Huge fire ball was space junk A huge fireball seen burning up in the night skies over Las Vegas was most likely Chinese space junk rather than a meteor. Large regions

Stream on demand from www.bitesz.com Stuart here with the Show Notes for Series 19 Episode 15. *A spinning gas halo discovered around the Milky Way Astronomers have been surprised to discover that a halo of hot gas surrounding the Milky Way galaxy is spinning in the same direction and at a comparable speed to the galaxy’s disk. Scientists had thought this enormous reservoir of hot gas remained stationary while the Milky Way spins inside it. *The Square Kilometer Array reaches another milestone Scientists have completed another key step in their efforts to build what will be the world’s largest radio telescope, the SKA or Square Kilometer Array. Researchers have successfully tested astronomical verification of a critical sub-system for the giant telescope known as the frequency synchronisation system. *Farewell to Rosetta’s Philae lander European Space Agency mission managers have formally switched off the system on the Rosetta spacecraft which provides communications links between the orbiter and its tiny Phi