SpaceTime with Stuart Gary Series 19 Episode 30 Show Notes

The largest solar system body without a name
A new study has found that a previously identified object in the Kuiper belt qualifies as the largest unnamed body in the solar system. The revised measurement of 2007 OR10 shows its significantly larger than previously thought – only about one-third smaller than Pluto -- and about a hundred kilometres larger than the dwarf planet Makemake.  

First direct observation of magnetic reconnection
Spacecraft have for the first time flown through the heart of a magnetic reconnection event -- the process that controls Earth's space weather and geomagnetic storms. The NASA probes intercepted the magnetic reconnection event at the boundary where Earth's magnetic field lines meet the field lines coming from the Sun. 

China’s new super dish radio telescope to be ready this year
Construction of a giant half kilometre wide radio telescope dish in China is expected to be completed this year. The massive new telescope is being built with help from the CSIRO in a natural basin in the landscape of southwestern China. 

Space Station hit by space debris
Space debris has impacted the International Space Station gouging out a tiny crater in the window of the orbiting outposts observation cupola. The impact produced a 7 millimetre circular chip on one of the cupola’s quad layered fused-silica and borosilicate-glass windows. 
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Space Station set’s a record
On Monday May 16, the International Space Station celebrated it’s 100,000th orbit of the Earth. That’s some 4,254,046,974 kilometres -- which is the same as ten round trips to Mars -- or a mission to Neptune the most distant planet – for now at least -- in the solar system.

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