A, B, C, listen. Hello there my friends, it's Ruby here and you are listening to Newstime.
Hello Ruby. Hi Ruby.
We're bowling at pace and heading to outer space on Newstime today.
We're going to hear about an enormous telescope, some courageous cricketers and paintings made of something that might surprise you.
I'll give you a hint You might want to wash your hands after you touch one What do you think?
Are you ready to hear more?
My bag is packed and I'm ready Story number five A powerful new telescope has just been built in the country Chile and it's helping us peer deeper into the universe than we've ever peered before I will look at planet Earth I'll look for different stars and all the shapes they make.
I would look for the Milky Way, different galaxies and universes and aliens.
The Vera C. Rubin Observatory is home to the world's most powerful digital camera.
It weighs 2 ,800 kilograms and it costs, wait for it, $1 .2 billion, with a B, dollars to build.
They're so big. It kind of looks a bit fat.
It could maybe have got everything in it.
I think it should be in a bit of a bigger building.
The observatory is high on a mountaintop in Chile and it will take photos of the night sky every few seconds for the next 10 years.
Just a couple of hours after it was first switched on, already thousands of new asteroids were spotted.
Scientists are hoping this powerful telescope will help us see stars exploding as supernovas, quasars sending out powerful pulses of energy and maybe even understand exactly what dark matter is.
I know what it is. I think it's like an empty space of dark things.
I think it might be like a really, really dark place in space.
There have already been some awesome images released, photos taken from the observatory.
If you like, ask a grown -up to look up the Vera C.
Rubin Observatory online.
It's worth checking out.
That's taking amazing photos.
That is one beautiful art picture.
I want to sleep under that now.
It's really beautiful and I like the colours and the stars.
I think I see a flying saucer.
Keep your eyes on the skies.
Who knows what the telescope will spot next.
Story number four. Time for some sport now.
Now, the Australian Indigenous Women's Cricket team has whacked their way to success overseas.
Cricket works like you've got a bat and then you've got, like, poles with little sticks on them and then someone throws the ball really hard and then you have to hit it.
When they're playing real cricket, they use a real cricket ball and it hits you really hard so that's why they wear, like, white stuff on them.
It's really fun. Cricket is really fun once you get the hang of it.
The Australian Indigenous women's cricket team proved that they really knew their stuff at the recent Pacific Oz Sports Cricket Invitational.
This event brought together Pacific and First Nations cricketers from Australia, Papua New Guinea, Samoa and Manawatu for a one week long tournament.
The captain of the team, Currarug woman Christina Coulson, says we're not just representing Australia, we're representing our culture.
Every time we step onto the field, we carry that with us.
She's representing that she's Aboriginal and she pays respects to land.
Paying respects to her country because she cares for it and she loves living in it.
Christina and her team represented their country and communities brilliantly.
They won most of their games and they finished the round robin tournament in second place.
Good work. Keep it up.
This was great. Captain Christina also talked about how important she thinks it is for young First Nations kids to see Indigenous athletes on the world stage.
She says you can't be what you can't see, which means she's hoping that people will see how well the team did and it will inspire young athletes to give cricket a go.
And they pass it on to their kids and then their kids play cricket.
This was the first time the Pacific Oz Sports Cricket Invitational was held.
Lots of people are hoping it won't be the last. Story number three.
Farm work is very important here in Australia, but like a lot of industries, it generates a lot of plastic waste.
Unfortunately, that waste is not always easy to recycle.
Maybe if they used all that plastic, they could maybe build a bug hotel.
There's an idea. Researchers at a Victorian university have thought of a way to recycle some of this plastic too.
They've helped develop a machine to melt down the synthetic twine that's used to tie hay together and turn that melted stuff into furniture and building materials.
This twine is often tricky to recycle because it's covered in dirt or little rocks, but this new machine can deal with all that extra stuff and it still recycles the twine.
Recycling means it keeps going on in it so we don't make landfill more and more bigger.
These researchers aren't the only people looking for ways to recycle farm waste.
The Bagmuster scheme collects and recycles agricultural bags, things used for carrying animal feed and fertiliser and seeds, stuff like that.
These bags can be returned and then they're transformed into new agricultural products.
You can turn stuff into anything.
It's estimated that about thirty percent of the stuff in landfill in regional areas is old bags from farms. That's why scientists have chosen these bags to focus their attention on.
Developers are now turning their attention to other kinds of plastic waste on farms. Things like plastic wrap.
If we stop landfill, all of our land can be clean and we can have clean air, a beautiful and plants and crops to grow.
As technology gets better and better, people are using it to solve problems that affect our environment so we can farm sister cells.
That looks like a sketch. Maybe charcoal?
Nope. For story number two, these artists are painting with number twos.
That's poo. Ew, that's gross!
That would be disgusting if someone touched it.
Who would want to make a picture out of bird poo?
That would have been crazy and stinky.
Tasmanian Museum owner Karen Coke has created the world's first animal poo painting competition.
For this poo -tastic Tasmanian paint -off, she's asked other artists to join her in creating artworks out of animal poo, mostly because she thinks it sounds like a bit of fun.
Cos they don't want to waste their paint, maybe?
Cos how would you make it out of bear poo or any other animal's poo like that?
Dog poo. Chicken poo.
Once these works are done, they're hung in a poo -seum, a place full of artworks and sculptures made from poo from all over the world.
No, thank you. I know someone who would love to visit the Pooh Museum.
A bug. This type of art is one you definitely should not try at home.
Ordinarily, poo is not very safe to touch. But Karen is a poo painting professional and she's found ways to do it safely.
Karen is especially passionate about poo because it's a normal part of everyday life.
It's important to keep an eye on your wee's and poo's to make sure they're not a strange colour or shape.
Poos can tell you a lot about somebody's health.
People feel embarrassed when they want to tell someone if their poo or wee is feeling bad or their poo looks like a different colour.
Karen hopes by visiting her poo -seum to view her artworks, people will be reminded that poo is normal and nothing to be ashamed of.
Karen's project gives a new meaning to the term artsy -fartsy, don't you think?
And now, my friends, it is time for...
Wow of the Week. This story made me go, wow, because it was fun.
Soccer players from Auckland in New Zealand recently travelled to the United States of America for a competition, the FIFA Club World Cup.
But the players on this team aren't the sort of players you'd expect at a World Cup.
They're only semi -professional and most of them have other jobs.
They're teachers, barbers, students and builders, and they play soccer mostly just because they love it.
When Auckland City got invited to play against the very best teams in the world, people were nervous.
They thought the Auckland team would lose for sure, and that might be a bit embarrassing.
They'll lose probably and they'll probably get zero likes.
Depends if they got at it or not.
If they went, I think the other team would win.
And you know what? Auckland did lose.
The first game they played, they lost 10 goals to zero.
Disappointed. There might be another team who knows.
There's lots of tricks.
Lots of tricks. But Auckland City didn't give up.
They laced up their boots and at the game after that, well, they lost again.
Six goals to zero. If I lost in that game, I would still be confident and we learn from our mistakes and we try and try and try.
Let's play again until we win.
Funny you say that.
You see, the game after that one, Auckland City scored a goal and they ended up drawing their next game one goal to one.
For a game against some of the best players in the world, I mean, that's a pretty good result.
Mind -blowing. You've got to practise and practise until you get it.
They might not be world champions, but there's a lot that you and I can learn from the Auckland City soccer team.
Don't get upset when you lose, just keep on trying and trying.
Exactly. And there's the final whistle.
It is officially the end of the countdown.
Thank you. Thanks a million.
You are so welcome.
I'm off to sniff out some super stories for next week.
Bye. Catch you next time, Ruby.
See you later. Or as they say in Tamil, Voi de varenga.
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