StarStuff

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About Me

Hi, I'm Stuart Gary, I'm a journalist and broadcaster with the Australian Broadcasting Corporation. I love science, especially the majesty and wonder of space, so I put together a weekly astronomy show for the ABC called StarStuff.

In my spare time I like to fly planes, practice karate and pistol target shooting and play around with my cars, a twin Turbocharged Falcon GT Interceptor and a DeTomaso Pantera GTS.

I’m vegan, a life member of the RSPCA and a supporter of several animal welfare organisations.

My other great passion is music which is understandable when you realise that I was a radio music jock long before I became a journalist. My record library contains tens of thousands of singles, albums, videos, CD’s and DVDs. These days that’s all stored in an 8 terabyte raid enclosure linked to a desk top PC at home. My tastes range from rock and grunge through to trance and new romantics. At the moment I’m listening to heaps of MGMT, William Control, Hawthorne Heights and Short Shack, but I have lots of time for the classics like Placebo and the early stuff from Silverchair, In fact Neon Ballroom is still my favourite album, and Emotion Sickness is still one of my two favourite songs (the other being William Control’s Death Club).

StarStuff is a great name for the show, but it works on more levels than just astronomy, it’s really cool for any science program because everything in the universe after the quark gluon plasma of the big bang is star stuff even the iron which makes your blood red was manufactured in the supernova explosions of stars. Carl Sagan said it best, we are all star stuff.


This blog is designed to allow me to publish all the things which can’t fit into StarStuff. There’s heaps of really interesting stuff out there and only a half hour window for the show, so each week becomes a battle to try and squeeze it all in. This blog lets me do that.

You can check out the show at the offical ABC StarStuff website:
http://www.abc.net.au/science/starstuff/

There's also an official ABC StarStuff Twitter feed: @abcstarstuff

And an official ABC Science website: http://www.abc.net.au/science/


The legal stuff: This is my personal blog. The views expressed in this blog are those of me only and not the Australian Broadcasting Corporation or its management. I do not claim ownership of any of the media in this blog. where possible credit and or source will always be given. If one of your photos or other media is submitted in this blog and you would like it removed please let me know.

Blogs I follow:

Theme by: Miguel
  1. NASA’S KEPLER ANNOUNCES 11 PLANETARY SYSTEMS HOSTING 26 PLANETS NASA’s Kepler mission has discovered 11 new planetary systems hosting 26 confirmed planets. These discoveries nearly double the number of verified planets and triple the number of stars known to have more than one planet that transits, or passes in front of, the star. Such systems will help astronomers better understand how planets form. The planets orbit close to their host stars and range in size from 1.5 times the radius of Earth to larger than Jupiter. Fifteen are between Earth and Neptune in size. Further observations will be required to determine which are rocky like Earth and which have thick gaseous atmospheres like Neptune. The planets orbit their host star once every six to 143 days. All are closer to their host star than Venus is to our Sun. “Prior to the Kepler mission, we knew of perhaps 500 exoplanets across the whole sky,” said Doug Hudgins, Kepler program scientist at NASA Headquarters in Washington. “Now, in just two years staring at a patch of sky not much bigger than your fist, Kepler has discovered more than 60 planets and more than 2,300 planet candidates. This tells us that our galaxy is positively loaded with planets of all sizes and orbits.” Kepler identifies planet candidates by repeatedly measuring the change in brightness of more than 150,000 stars to detect when a planet passes in front of the star. That passage casts a small shadow toward Earth and the Kepler spacecraft. Each of the new confirmed planetary systems contains two to five closely spaced transiting planets. In tightly packed planetary systems, the gravitational pull of the planets on each other causes some planets to accelerate and some to decelerate along their orbits. The acceleration causes the orbital period of each planet to change. Kepler detects this effect by measuring the changes, or so-called Transit Timing Variations (TTVs). Planetary systems with TTVs can be verified without requiring extensive ground-based observations, accelerating confirmation of planet candidates. The TTV detection technique also increases Kepler’s ability to confirm planetary systems around fainter and more distant stars. Five of the systems (Kepler-25, Kepler-27, Kepler-30, Kepler-31 and Kepler-33) contain a pair of planets where the inner planet orbits the star twice during each orbit of the outer planet. Four of the systems (Kepler-23, Kepler-24, Kepler-28 and Kepler-32) contain a pairing where the outer planet circles the star twice for every three times the inner planet orbits its star. “These configurations help to amplify the gravitational interactions between the planets, similar to how my sons kick their legs on a swing at the right time to go higher,” said Jason Steffen, the Brinson postdoctoral fellow at Fermilab Center for Particle Astrophysics in Batavia, Ill., and lead author of a paper confirming four of the systems. Kepler-33, a star that is older and more massive than our Sun, had the most planets. The system hosts five planets, ranging in size from 1.5 to 5 times that of Earth. All of the planets are located closer to their star than any planet is to our Sun. The properties of a star provide clues for planet detection. The decrease in the star’s brightness and duration of a planet transit, combined with the properties of its host star, present a recognizable signature. When astronomers detect planet candidates that exhibit similar signatures around the same star, the likelihood of any of these planet candidates being a false positive is very low. “The approach used to verify the Kepler-33 planets shows the overall reliability is quite high,” said Jack Lissauer, planetary scientist at NASA Ames Research Center at Moffett Field, Calif., and lead author of the paper on Kepler-33. “This is a validation by multiplicity.” These discoveries are published in four different papers in the Astrophysical Journal and the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society. IMAGE…..Kepler’s Planetary Systems, Jan. 2012 The artist’s rendering depicts the multiple planet systems discovered by NASA’s Kepler mission. Out of hundreds of candidate planetary systems, scientists had previously verified six systems with multiple transiting planets (denoted here in red). Now, Kepler observations have verified planets (shown here in green) in 11 new planetary systems. Many of these systems contain additional planet candidates that are yet to be verified (shown here in dark purple). For reference, the eight planets of the solar system are shown in blue. Credit: NASA Ames/Jason Steffen, Fermilab Center for Particle Astrophysics

    NASA’S KEPLER ANNOUNCES
    11 PLANETARY SYSTEMS HOSTING 26 PLANETS

    NASA’s Kepler mission has discovered 11 new planetary systems hosting
    26 confirmed planets. These discoveries nearly double the number of
    verified planets and triple the number of stars known to have more
    than one planet that transits, or passes in front of, the star. Such
    systems will help astronomers better understand how planets form.

    The planets orbit close to their host stars and range in size from 1.5
    times the radius of Earth to larger than Jupiter. Fifteen are between
    Earth and Neptune in size. Further observations will be required to
    determine which are rocky like Earth and which have thick gaseous
    atmospheres like Neptune. The planets orbit their host star once every
    six to 143 days. All are closer to their host star than Venus is to
    our Sun.

    “Prior to the Kepler mission, we knew of perhaps 500 exoplanets across
    the whole sky,” said Doug Hudgins, Kepler program scientist at NASA
    Headquarters in Washington. “Now, in just two years staring at a patch
    of sky not much bigger than your fist, Kepler has discovered more than
    60 planets and more than 2,300 planet candidates. This tells us that
    our galaxy is positively loaded with planets of all sizes and orbits.”

    Kepler identifies planet candidates by repeatedly measuring the change
    in brightness of more than 150,000 stars to detect when a planet
    passes in front of the star. That passage casts a small shadow toward
    Earth and the Kepler spacecraft.

    Each of the new confirmed planetary systems contains two to five
    closely spaced transiting planets. In tightly packed planetary
    systems, the gravitational pull of the planets on each other causes
    some planets to accelerate and some to decelerate along their orbits.
    The acceleration causes the orbital period of each planet to change.
    Kepler detects this effect by measuring the changes, or so-called
    Transit Timing Variations (TTVs).

    Planetary systems with TTVs can be verified without requiring
    extensive ground-based observations, accelerating confirmation of
    planet candidates. The TTV detection technique also increases Kepler’s
    ability to confirm planetary systems around fainter and more distant
    stars.

    Five of the systems (Kepler-25, Kepler-27, Kepler-30, Kepler-31 and
    Kepler-33) contain a pair of planets where the inner planet orbits the
    star twice during each orbit of the outer planet. Four of the systems
    (Kepler-23, Kepler-24, Kepler-28 and Kepler-32) contain a pairing
    where the outer planet circles the star twice for every three times
    the inner planet orbits its star.

    “These configurations help to amplify the gravitational interactions
    between the planets, similar to how my sons kick their legs on a swing
    at the right time to go higher,” said Jason Steffen, the Brinson
    postdoctoral fellow at Fermilab Center for Particle Astrophysics in
    Batavia, Ill., and lead author of a paper confirming four of the
    systems.

    Kepler-33, a star that is older and more massive than our Sun, had the
    most planets. The system hosts five planets, ranging in size from 1.5
    to 5 times that of Earth. All of the planets are located closer to
    their star than any planet is to our Sun.

    The properties of a star provide clues for planet detection. The
    decrease in the star’s brightness and duration of a planet transit,
    combined with the properties of its host star, present a recognizable
    signature. When astronomers detect planet candidates that exhibit
    similar signatures around the same star, the likelihood of any of
    these planet candidates being a false positive is very low.

    “The approach used to verify the Kepler-33 planets shows the overall
    reliability is quite high,” said Jack Lissauer, planetary scientist at
    NASA Ames Research Center at Moffett Field, Calif., and lead author of
    the paper on Kepler-33. “This is a validation by multiplicity.”

    These discoveries are published in four different papers in the
    Astrophysical Journal and the Monthly Notices of the Royal
    Astronomical Society.

    IMAGE…..Kepler’s Planetary Systems, Jan. 2012
    The artist’s rendering depicts the multiple planet systems discovered by NASA’s Kepler mission. Out of hundreds of candidate planetary systems, scientists had previously verified six systems with multiple transiting planets (denoted here in red). Now, Kepler observations have verified planets (shown here in green) in 11 new planetary systems. Many of these systems contain additional planet candidates that are yet to be verified (shown here in dark purple). For reference, the eight planets of the solar system are shown in blue.

    Credit: NASA Ames/Jason Steffen, Fermilab Center for Particle Astrophysics

    2. 11 Notes
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