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. Earth from Space: Africa’s largest and highest The border region of southern Kenya and northern Tanzania – with a small portion of south eastern Uganda – is pictured in this Envisat image. Lake Victoria straddles all three countries. Named after Queen Victoria in the mid-1800s, it is the largest African lake by area and supports the continent’s largest inland fishery. In the lower-right portion of the image, we can see the snows of Kilimanjaro, Africa’s highest mountain at 5895 m above sea level. This dormant volcano has three volcanic cones: Kibo, Mawenzi and Shira. The last major eruption is believed to have occurred over 300 000 years ago, though Kibo emits gas from an opening in Earth’s crust below it. North of Mount Kilimanjaro is Mount Kenya, the second-highest mountain in Africa – just above 5000 m. This mountain has 11 small glaciers, but they are rapidly retreating – similar to the ones on Kilimanjaro. Glacial retreat can be caused by changes in the trends of temperature or precipitation. The area around Mount Kenya is a national park protecting the biodiversity and forming an attractive destination for tourists. The area is home to monkey, antelopes, elephants and leopards. The area pictured is part of the East African Rift – an area where two tectonic plates are moving apart from one another – making this home to a number of both active and dormant volcanoes. Most volcanoes around the world are not monitored effectively – or at all. Satellite radars can detect small changes in the ground that may indicate volcanic activity, and can do this on a global scale and in remote or inaccessible areas. This image was acquired by Envisat’s MERIS instrument on 4 January 2012. Contact with Envisat was suddenly lost on 8 April and the mission has come to an end. But ten years of Envisat’s archived data will continue to be exploited for studying Earth’s land, atmosphere, oceans and ice caps for years to come. The Image of the Week is featured on ESA Web-TV, broadcast online every Friday at 10:00 CEST.


    Earth from Space: Africa’s largest and highest


    The border region of southern Kenya and northern Tanzania – with a small portion of south eastern Uganda – is pictured in this Envisat image.

    Lake Victoria straddles all three countries. Named after Queen Victoria in the mid-1800s, it is the largest African lake by area and supports the continent’s largest inland fishery.
    In the lower-right portion of the image, we can see the snows of Kilimanjaro, Africa’s highest mountain at 5895 m above sea level.

    This dormant volcano has three volcanic cones: Kibo, Mawenzi and Shira. The last major eruption is believed to have occurred over 300 000 years ago, though Kibo emits gas from an opening in Earth’s crust below it.

    North of Mount Kilimanjaro is Mount Kenya, the second-highest mountain in Africa – just above 5000 m. This mountain has 11 small glaciers, but they are rapidly retreating – similar to the ones on Kilimanjaro. Glacial retreat can be caused by changes in the trends of temperature or precipitation.

    The area around Mount Kenya is a national park protecting the biodiversity and forming an attractive destination for tourists. The area is home to monkey, antelopes, elephants and leopards.

    The area pictured is part of the East African Rift – an area where two tectonic plates are moving apart from one another – making this home to a number of both active and dormant volcanoes.

    Most volcanoes around the world are not monitored effectively – or at all. Satellite radars can detect small changes in the ground that may indicate volcanic activity, and can do this on a global scale and in remote or inaccessible areas.

    This image was acquired by Envisat’s MERIS instrument on 4 January 2012.

    Contact with Envisat was suddenly lost on 8 April and the mission has come to an end. But ten years of Envisat’s archived data will continue to be exploited for studying Earth’s land, atmosphere, oceans and ice caps for years to come.

    The Image of the Week is featured on ESA Web-TV, broadcast online every Friday at 10:00 CEST.