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. JUPITER HELPS HALLEY’S COMET GIVE US MORE SPECTACULAR METEOR DISPLAYS The dramatic appearance of Halley’s comet in the night sky has been observed and recorded by astronomers since 240 BC. Now a study shows that the orbital influences of Jupiter on the comet and the debris it leaves in its wake are responsible for periodic outbursts of activity in the Orionid meteor showers. The results will be presented by Aswin Sekhar at the National Astronomy Meeting in Manchester on Tuesday 27th March. Halley’s comet orbits the Sun every 75-76 years on average. As its nucleus approaches the Sun, it heats up and releases gas and dust that form the spectacular tail. This outgassing leaves a trail of debris around the orbit. When the Earth crosses Halley’s path — twice per orbit — dust particles (meteoroids) burn up in the Earth’s atmosphere and we see meteor showers: the Orionids in October and the Eta Aquarids in May. Previous research has suggested that Orionid meteoroids have at times fallen into ‘resonances’ with Jupiter’s orbit — a numerical relationship that influences orbital behavior. Sekhar’s new study suggests that Halley itself has been in resonances with Jupiter in the past, which in turn would increase the chances of populating resonant meteoroids in the stream. The particles ejected during those times experience a tendency to clump together due to periodic effects from Jupiter. “This resonant behavior of meteoroids means that Halley’s debris is not uniformly distributed along its orbital path. When the Earth encounters one of these clumps, it experiences a much more spectacular meteor shower than usual,” said Sekhar, of Armagh Observatory. Sekhar has modeled Halley’s orbital evolution over more than 12,000 years into the past and 15,000 years into the future. The model suggests that from 1404 BC to 690 BC, Halley was trapped in a 1:6 resonance with Jupiter (in which Halley completed one orbit for every six orbits of Jupiter around the Sun). Later, from 240 BC to 1700 AD, the comet’s orbit had a 2:13 relationship with Jupiter’s orbit. Debris deposited during these two periods can be directly attributed to heightened activity in the Orionid meteor showers in some years. Sekhar’s work suggests that the unusual Orionid outburst observed in 1993 was due to 2:13 resonant meteoroids ejected from Halley around 240 BC. He predicts that the next similar display of meteors from this 2:13 resonance will be in 2070 AD. “The real beauty of this area of science lies in the convergence of cometary physics and orbital dynamics. The close correlation between historical records from ancient civilizations and the predictions using modern science make it even more elegant,” said Sekhar. He added, “There are enough unsolved problems pertaining to Halley and its meteor streams to keep us occupied till the next apparition of the comet in 2061!” IMAGE…The nucleus of Halley’s Comet, taken by the Halley Multicolor Camera on board ESA’s Giotto spacecraft in 1986. Credit: MPS Germany/H.U. Keller/ESA

    JUPITER HELPS HALLEY’S COMET GIVE US MORE SPECTACULAR METEOR DISPLAYS

    The dramatic appearance of Halley’s comet in the night sky has been observed and recorded by astronomers since 240 BC. Now a study shows that the orbital influences of Jupiter on the comet and the debris it leaves in its wake are responsible for periodic outbursts of activity in the Orionid meteor showers. The results will be presented by Aswin Sekhar at the National Astronomy Meeting in Manchester on Tuesday 27th March.

    Halley’s comet orbits the Sun every 75-76 years on average. As its nucleus approaches the Sun, it heats up and releases gas and dust that form the spectacular tail. This outgassing leaves a trail of debris around the orbit.

    When the Earth crosses Halley’s path — twice per orbit — dust particles (meteoroids) burn up in the Earth’s atmosphere and we see meteor showers: the Orionids in October and the Eta Aquarids in May. Previous research has suggested that Orionid meteoroids have at times fallen into ‘resonances’ with Jupiter’s orbit — a numerical relationship that influences orbital behavior. Sekhar’s new study suggests that Halley itself has been in resonances with Jupiter in the past, which in turn would increase the chances of populating resonant meteoroids in the stream. The particles ejected during those times experience a tendency to clump together due to periodic effects from Jupiter.

    “This resonant behavior of meteoroids means that Halley’s debris is not uniformly distributed along its orbital path. When the Earth encounters one of these clumps, it experiences a much more spectacular meteor shower than usual,” said Sekhar, of Armagh Observatory.

    Sekhar has modeled Halley’s orbital evolution over more than 12,000 years into the past and 15,000 years into the future. The model suggests that from 1404 BC to 690 BC, Halley was trapped in a 1:6 resonance with Jupiter (in which Halley completed one orbit for every six orbits of Jupiter around the Sun). Later, from 240 BC to 1700 AD, the comet’s orbit had a 2:13 relationship with Jupiter’s orbit. Debris deposited during these two periods can be directly attributed to heightened activity in the Orionid meteor showers in some years. Sekhar’s work suggests that the unusual Orionid outburst observed in 1993 was due to 2:13 resonant meteoroids ejected from Halley around 240 BC. He predicts that the next similar display of meteors from this 2:13 resonance will be in 2070 AD.

    “The real beauty of this area of science lies in the convergence of cometary physics and orbital dynamics. The close correlation between historical records from ancient civilizations and the predictions using modern science make it even more elegant,” said Sekhar. He added, “There are enough unsolved problems pertaining to Halley and its meteor streams to keep us occupied till the next apparition of the comet in 2061!”

    IMAGE…The nucleus of Halley’s Comet, taken by the Halley Multicolor Camera on board ESA’s Giotto spacecraft in 1986. Credit: MPS Germany/H.U. Keller/ESA

    2. 1 Notes
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