Pallab Ghosh
Appearances
Global News Podcast
US and Ukraine strike mineral deal
For weeks, we've been able to see as many as six planets in the night sky. Now this planetary parade has reached its climax, with Mercury also coming into view, completing the full set of the other planets in our solar system. Among the stargazers catching a glimpse is Professor Catherine Haymans, who's Scotland's Astronomer Royal.
Global News Podcast
US and Ukraine strike mineral deal
Dr Robert Massey of the Royal Astronomical Society explains where to look in the sky this evening to spot the planets.
Global News Podcast
US and Ukraine strike mineral deal
All seven planets will be visible for only a few more days, and the next time to see the spectacle so well again will be in 2040.
Global News Podcast
Syria's de facto leader says the country is not a threat to its neighbours or the west
Butch Wilmore and Sonny Williams blasted off in June on an experimental spacecraft built by Boeing called Starliner. On the way there, there were a few issues with their thrusters. And everyone said it was going to be fine. And NASA just needed to check it out. After those eight days had gone by, they said they still needed to check things out. And then days turned to weeks later.
Global News Podcast
Syria's de facto leader says the country is not a threat to its neighbours or the west
Weeks turned to a month. And then they said they'd have to wait until February because they couldn't be sure that they could get them back safely. And so much to Boeing's irritation, I suspect, they were told that it would be their arch rival SpaceX that would use their space capsule, the Dragon capsule, to bring them back in their next crew rotation. Alas, SpaceX 2 has had an issue.
Global News Podcast
Syria's de facto leader says the country is not a threat to its neighbours or the west
It hasn't got its capsule, the Dragon capsule, ready on time. So that's the reason for the delay. It's going to have it ready towards the end of March. And so that's delayed Butch and Sonny's return by a couple more months.
Global News Podcast
Syria's de facto leader says the country is not a threat to its neighbours or the west
Well, one would think so. I'm sure they're a little bit disappointed at missing out on Christmas. But that was always going to happen since September when they were told they were going to be stuck there till February. But these are professional astronauts. For them, being on the International Space Station is the best thing ever.
Global News Podcast
Syria's de facto leader says the country is not a threat to its neighbours or the west
There are hundreds of astronauts that would love to be in their position. So they, in some ways, were probably quite pleased when their short-duration eight-day mission was extended. And they've said several times they love working in space. And even Sonny Williams has said that the space station is a happy place. So I think that they're doing fine. They're doing their jobs.
Global News Podcast
Syria's de facto leader says the country is not a threat to its neighbours or the west
And they're doing it at the highest possible level, which is what they have lived to do.
Global News Podcast
Syria's de facto leader says the country is not a threat to its neighbours or the west
They're taking part in normal crew activities. There are hundreds of experiments on the International Space Station, but the biggest experiment of all is finding out the impact that long-duration space missions have on people.
Global News Podcast
Syria's de facto leader says the country is not a threat to its neighbours or the west
All the astronauts that go up there have their vitals monitored to see whether humans can stay in space in case we want to have colonies on the Moon or even have long-duration missions to Mars or even beyond.
Global News Podcast
New Orleans attack: death toll rises to 15
DNA, the hereditary material that makes up living things, changes as it's passed down the generations. And it can be read like a barcode. So far, scientists have been able to see in fossilised DNA only the very big changes that have taken place over thousands of years. For example, the physical changes that came with human evolution.
Global News Podcast
New Orleans attack: death toll rises to 15
But now, Professor Pontus Skerglund and his team at the Francis Crick Institute in London have found a way to identify more recent changes in the barcode over a few hundred years. This allows them to tell when and how different groups of people migrated and their interactions with the local population.
Global News Podcast
New Orleans attack: death toll rises to 15
Professor Skerglund is working with archaeologists excavating sites across Great Britain in order to extract DNA from bones. He's also collaborating with the historian Professor Peter Heather from King's College London, who says he expects to learn much more about the country's history.
Global News Podcast
New Orleans attack: death toll rises to 15
There are thousands of human remains in Britain's museums to analyse. Each has their own tale to tell. The new discovery will enable scientists to hear their stories and rewrite the history books.
Global News Podcast
UK announces European plan for peace in Ukraine
Delight from the mission control team as confirmation came that the uncrewed spacecraft was stable and upright. The first image it sent back shows a rocky pockmarked terrain. The golden lunar lander is about the size of a hippopotamus and carries 10 scientific instruments.
Global News Podcast
UK announces European plan for peace in Ukraine
Dr Nikki Fox of NASA said that the mission would provide vital knowledge about the layer of dust on the moon's surface, which is called regolith.
Global News Podcast
UK announces European plan for peace in Ukraine
Until today, just one private sector spacecraft had successfully touched down on the Moon. That was a landing last year of a craft built by Texas company Intuitive Machines, which will be attempting a second landing in a few days' time.
Global News Podcast
UK announces European plan for peace in Ukraine
And there are likely to be many more private sector missions to the lunar surface as firms across the world build up the expertise and capability to support NASA's plans for a long-term human presence on the Moon.
Global News Podcast
Nato steps up efforts to protect cables in Baltic Sea
They thought the spacecraft would emerge, but they didn't know whether it would emerge intact. But so far, so good. It sent back a little bleep to say that it was in good health. It won't be sending back any data for a few days. We'll have to wait until the 1st of January.
Global News Podcast
Nato steps up efforts to protect cables in Baltic Sea
But a huge sigh of relief because not only has it broken records, it's hopefully gathered new data on how our sun actually works.
Global News Podcast
Nato steps up efforts to protect cables in Baltic Sea
That's right. You'd imagine that this thing that's up in the sky every day, we know so much about. Astronomers have been studying it for centuries. There have been so many missions that have gone. But none have got so close. The Parker Solar Probe came within four million miles. Now, that seems like a very, very long way away. But in space terms, that's really close, touching the sun, if you like.
Global News Podcast
Nato steps up efforts to protect cables in Baltic Sea
And so it needed a powerful heat shield, an experimental heat shield to protect it. And believe it or not, so close to the sun, somehow the instruments were kept at room temperature. I don't know where this room was, but it must be a pretty hot room. But the long and short of it is that the instruments are intact. We'll have to wait and see the data.
Global News Podcast
Nato steps up efforts to protect cables in Baltic Sea
Because sometimes during a solar eclipse, you must have seen pictures of it, you see the sun's atmosphere. Normally... You know, you don't look at the sun, but pictures of it show this kind of featureless disk in the sky. But when the moon passes overhead and covers that disk, you see this beautiful shimmering atmosphere and a few red things emerging from it.
Global News Podcast
Nato steps up efforts to protect cables in Baltic Sea
And then you see what the sun is really like, this beautiful but violent processes going on on it. And it's understanding those processes that the Parker Solar Probe is there. There are magnetic fields that twist and turn automatically. the fiery surface, the corona, the sun's atmosphere.
Global News Podcast
Nato steps up efforts to protect cables in Baltic Sea
The sun also spits out a solar wind, which comes over and hits the earth, cause those wonderful northern lights that we experience from time to time. So a lot to learn, a lot to look forward to in the coming days, weeks and months.