SpaceTime with Stuart Gary

SpaceTime Series 26 Episode 16 *Juno team assessing spacecraft camera issue Mission managers are evaluating an issue with NASA’s Juno spacecraft which is on an extended mission to the gas giant Jupiter. *NASA’s Mars Perseverance Rover Completes Mars Sample Depot. Ten sample tubes containing an amazing variety of Martian geology samples have now been deposited on Martian surface as a back up to ide...

SpaceTime Series 26 Episode 15 *Milky Way found to be more unique than previously thought A new study has found that the Milky Way galaxy is too big for its cosmological wall – something not yet seen in any other galaxy. *Boeing Starliner Calypso to fly in April The Boeing CST-100 Starliner Calypso is now expected to carry its first human crew to the International Space Station in April. *The worl...

*First Brown Dwarf imaged in the Hyades open star cluster Astronomers have imaged a brown dwarf in the Hyades open star cluster for the first time. *BepiColombo and Solar Orbiter Compare Notes at Venus The convergence of two spacecraft at Venus back in August 2021 has given a unique insight into how the planet is able to retain its thick atmosphere without the protection of a global magnetic field...

SpaceTime Series 26 Episode 13 *Rubble pile asteroids older than thought A new study has found that so called rubble pile asteroids can be almost as old as the solar system. *Has the Earth’s core stopped spinning A new study claims the rotation of the Earth’s solid inner core may have recently paused and could even be reversing. *Asteroid near miss An asteroid the size of a truck has just swooped...

SpaceTime Series 26 Episode 12 *James Webb sees clouds on Titan NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope has turned focus onto the giant Saturnian moon Titan finding fluffy clouds in its atmosphere. *The red planet’s curiously sized sand dunes A new study has confirmed that the red sand dunes which dominate so much of the Martian landscape form the way they do because of the red planet’s thin and turbule...

SpaceTime Series 26 Episode 11 *Martian moon Phobos starting to tear apart A new study suggests the 22 kilometre wide Martian moon Phobos is showing the first signs of the process that will eventually tear it apart. *Planet Earth’s latest climate report NASA says 2022 was Planet Earth’s fifth warmest year on record. Scientists with the Goddard Space Flight Centre say 2022 would have been even hott...

SpaceTime Series 26 Episode 10 *What brought the dwarf planet Ceres to life A new study suggests radioactive decay of minerals could account for heat needed to drive active geology early in the history of the dwarf planet Ceres. *Lonsdaleite in the sky with diamonds Scientists searching for meteorites in outback South Australia are finding diamonds embedded in the space rocks. *Britain’s first orb...

*Astronomers find the most distant stars in our galaxy halfway to Andromeda A new study shows the furthest reaches of the Milky Way galaxy – a region known as the galactic halo is so far away it almost touches the halo of our nearest galactic neighbour the Andromeda galaxy M31. *New evidence for habitability in Enceladus’s ocean The search for extraterrestrial life just got more interesting follow...

SpaceTime Series 26 Episode 8 *Discovering the origin of the solar wind Scientists with NASA’s Parker Solar Probe mission have uncovered significant new clues about the origins of the solar wind – the continual stream of charged particles flowing out from the Sun which baths the Earth and other planets and fills the solar system. *Growing violence as the Sun moves into solar cycle 25 The Sun has b...

SpaceTime Series 26 Episode 7 *Spinning stars shed new light on a strange signal coming from the galactic center Astronomers say a mysterious excess in gamma ray energy radiating out from the Milky Way’s galactic bulge which was long thought to be a potential signature of dark matter could actually be as a vast population of white dwarf stars which have collapsed to become millisecond pulsars. *Wa...

*Big blast on the volcanic moon IO Astronomers has detected a massive eruption on the on the volcanic Jovian moon IO. *How the Sun’s activity influences deep space cosmic rays Astronomers have discovered how changes in the Sun’s eleven year solar cycle effect the high energy cosmic rays reaching the inner solar system. *Europe’s newest advanced weather satellite launched into space The European Sp...

SpaceTime Series 26 Episode 5 *Explaining the mysterious Fermi Bubbles at the centre of the Milky Way A new study has shown how the Fermi bubbles – a pair of massive gamma-ray emitting bubbles emanating from around the centre of our Milky Way Galaxy -- could have been produced by a super massive black hole. *Milky Way like Galaxies discovered in the early universe New images from NASA’s spectacula...

SpaceTime Series 26 Episode 4 *Uncovering the quantum mysteries of black holes A new study suggests that the universe’s most exotic objects -- black holes -- can have different masses simultaneously. *NASA’s angels do play this HAARP NASA has used the powerful HAARP array in the remote north of Alaska to study an asteroid. *Five new Australian satellites launched by SpaceX SpaceX starts the new ye...

SpaceTime Series 26 Episode 3 *Have astronomers just found the most exotic type of neutron star ever seen? Astronomers have identified an unusually small neutron star that could be the first ever confirmed detection of a strange star. *Japan’s lunar lander on its way to the Moon A Japanese spacecraft carrying a small lunar rover is on its way to the Moon following a spectacular night time launch a...

SpaceTime Series 26 Episode 2 *Where did the first quasars come from? New computer simulations reported in the current issue of Australian sky and Telescope Magazine suggest the universe’s first quasars probably originated from supermassive black holes formed from the collapse of massive clouds of gas. *Why the Southern Hemisphere is stormier than the North For centuries, sailors who had been all...

SpaceTime Series 26 Episode 1 *How spiral galaxies lose their arms A new study suggests spiral galaxies like our own galaxy the Milky Way lose their stunning spirals when they lose the molecular gas needed for star formation. *The asteroid Ryugu sheds new light on the solar system’s history Scientists studying samples returned to Earth from the asteroid Ryugu have found its composed of some of the...

SpaceTime Series 25 Episode 142 *NASA’s Perseverance rover to start setting up the Martian sample depot NASA’s Mars Perseverance Rover has started work to set up a Mars sample return depot on the red planet – the first to be established on another world. *A new satellite launched to monitor all the world’s water The joint Franco-American scientific satellite has been successfully launched into orb...

*Vega C explodes in mid flight The European Space Agency has suspended all Vega flights and established an independent board of inquiry following the failure of a Vega C rocket during its ascent to orbit. *A violent leak threatens the space worthiness of a Soyuz capsule docked to the space station The Russian Federal Space Agency Roscosmos are trying to determine if the Soyuz MS-22 spacecraft is s...

SpaceTime Series 25 Episode 140 *NASA’s Insight lander goes silent NASA’s Mars Insight lander has failed to respond to calls from mission managers back on Earth and may have gone silent after running out of power. *Biggest Marsquake ever recorded Insight scientists are reporting Insights detection of the largest marsquake ever recorded on the red planet – some five times bigger than any previously...

SpaceTime Series 25 Episode 139 *Mars helicopter sets new altitude record NASA's Mars Ingenuity helicopter has set a new altitude record on its 35th flight on the red planet. *Dark matter could be made up of dark photons A team of scientists have hypothesized that a mysterious substance called dark matter could be composed of something they’re calling dark photons. *NASA’s Mars InSight lander stil...

SpaceTime Series 25 Episode 138 *First-ever sound recording of dust devils on Mars Astronomers get the first ever sound recording of a dust devil twisting its way across the surface of Mars. *What the first galaxies were, and weren't, like Researchers have been able to make some key determinations about the first galaxies to exist, in one of the first astrophysical studies of the period in the ear...

SpaceTime Series 25 Episode 137 *The mysterious meteor that changes everything Astronomers believe that a meteor which streaked across the darkened skies of central Alberta didn’t originate in the inner solar system but from the far reaches of the distant Oort cloud. *NASA’s Artemis 1 mission declared a massive success NASA’s Artemis 1 Orion spacecraft has successfully splashed down in the North P...

SpaceTime Series 25 Episode 136 *What Earth’s volcanic history can tell us about Venus A new study claims volcanic activity lasting hundreds to thousands of centuries and erupting massive amounts of material may have helped transform Venus from a warm wet world like the Earth in to the acidic hothouse it is today. *The Moonlight initiative The European Space Agency has commenced development of the...

SpaceTime Series 25 Episode 135 *Astronomers identify a paradigm-changing cosmic explosion Our standard Astronomy text books will need to be re-written after scientists discovered a distant blast unlike anything ever seen before. *Saturn’s rings and tilt could have been caused by an ancient, missing moon A new study suggests that the majestic ringed world of Saturn may ow its spectacular ring syst...

SpaceTime Series 25 Episode 134 *A giant mantle plume identified on Mars A new study suggests the Martian core could still be at least partially molten liquid. The findings reported in the journal Nature Astronomy are based on the detection of what appears to be a deep mantle plume – a region of liquid magma heated by the planet’s core and rising towards the surface. *A new technique to study plan...