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ABC Listen. Hello, my friends.
It's Ruby here and you're listening to News Time.
Hi, Ruby. Hello, Ruby.
Here on News Time, I count down five of the best news stories from around Australia and around the world and I include a bonus story guaranteed to make you say, wow.
That's our wow of the week.
This episode has some big space news.
Then we'll come back down to Earth to hear about crocodiles, skillful storytellers and a long lost diary.
Are you ready? I'm ready.
Story number five. Outer space stretches for thousands of kilometres in every direction, but planet Earth has its very own companion as we hershle through this vast expanse.
That companion is the moon.
Some people think it's made of cheese.
Asteroids have, like, crashed into the moon and created holes and there's just big marks in the moon.
Well, our moon is in our solar system.
A moon is an object that orbits a planet, sometimes called a natural satellite.
The planet Uranus has 27 moons, Jupiter has 95, Saturn has 146 and planet Earth, well, we just have one.
But pretty soon, our moon won't be the only one orbiting Earth.
For the next two months or so, we're getting a temporary mini moon.
I didn't know that there was going to be a second moon, but it sounds amazing.
It's an asteroid that is coming quite close to Earth, but won't hit Earth.
Yes, that's it. An asteroid called 2024PT.
It's currently speeding through our patch of the solar system and it's been caught in Earth's gravitational pull.
The asteroid won't hit Earth, instead, until the end of November, it will orbit the Earth just like the moon does, before being flung off back into outer space.
So we're going to see, like, two moons in the sky.
I'll go ask my parents and then see if we can find the best place so I can see the meteorite asteroid thing.
Unfortunately, you probably won't get to see our mini moon yourself.
It's too small to see with the naked eye.
It's only about the size of a bus.
You'd need a super strong telescope to spot something that tiny, so we'll just have to wait for space agencies around the world to snap some pics and share them with the rest of us.
Mini moon! Thanks for stopping by, 2024PT.
Enjoy your stay. Story number four.
Do you like telling stories?
Usually I'm doing stories, like, at night time because I sleep in the same room as my sister and then I usually either do scary ones or boring ones.
It just tells stories about my day.
I like telling stories of, like, things I've done in the past and, like, adventures I've had.
Nice. A group of adults in the town of Wallaroo in South Australia, they get together to tell stories too.
They focus on something called oral storytelling.
That's telling stories by speaking rather than writing them down or drawing comics.
The participants aren't allowed to bring notes with them.
They have to tell their stories by heart and remember it as best they can.
It would be hard to try and memorise all the stories.
Everyone is welcome at Storytelling Group, but it's especially useful for participants like friends Marilyn and Gaynor.
They both have something called dyslexia.
That makes it harder to learn or use written language.
When Marilyn and Gaynor were in school, their dyslexia made schoolwork difficult, especially when it came to reading or writing stories.
But the Storytelling Group lets them show off their skills in a fun and welcoming environment.
They might not be good at written down questions, but they want to show people that they're good at doing those things so they would come along to tell their stories.
Our imaginations are meant to do that.
The Wallaroo Storytelling Crew loves their monthly meet -ups.
They all say it's a great way for them to make friends and keep their brains sharp, and build their confidence telling stories and communicating with others.
Maybe one of their next stories will be about starring in a story on News Time.
The small town of Huenden sits in the middle of Queensland.
It's got a population of just over 1 ,000 people, and as of recently, approximately one lake -bound crocodile.
Hiding in Huenden's man -made lake is a freshwater crop named Houdini.
Houdini's been living in the town for a while, but the thing is, no one's really sure how he got there.
I think he went out of a river and explored to try and find a different river because he didn't like the river he was living in before, but ended up finding the giant lake instead.
Maybe there's a new species of crocodiles where they can actually dig, so they dock on the ground.
Maybe someone scared the crocodile and then the crocodiles ran into a lake or something.
The people of Huenden say their lake is a strange place for a crocodile to turn up.
It's a long way away from their usual habitat.
Houdini's proven to be rather a shy croc and skittish too.
That means he's easily scared.
I think he feels sad because he's homesick.
He feels unwelcome because there are lots of new things.
After Houdini's extended stay, the locals called in some experts to investigate Houdini's hiding spot.
They wanted to know whether he'd be safe in the lake or whether he should be moved somewhere else.
Wildlife officer Ella Meave spent a couple of days in the town but only managed to spot Houdini a couple of times.
Ella says they're going to let Houdini stay in Huenden because it can be safe for humans and freshwater crocodiles to live near each other, so long as the locals follow some simple rules.
They come and don't go near the croc.
Snappy advice. I like it.
If you see any crocs in the wild, in local lakes or luscious lagoons, be sure to leave them alone and give them lots of space.
Story number two. Every day, we make lots of choices.
What to have for breakfast, which book to read, what to wear.
What do you like to wear?
Whatever I pull out of my drawers.
My parents just pull clothes out and say, wear this.
Cowboy costumes. I love these choices.
A mother -daughter team, Reneea and Charlotte Johnson, have just opened a special kind of clothing store in their garage.
It's called a swap shop.
People can donate clothes or trade clothes or even find clothes they like and take them for free if they can't afford to buy them.
People are invited to search for clothes that suit them, no matter who they are or what their gender is.
That sounds amazing.
I think it's a good idea because people without money can buy, can get clothes.
Sometimes, people can be a bit discouraged from buying clothes they prefer to wear when they go shopping in big shopping centres.
Maybe because of how they look.
Reneea and Charlotte want their garage swap shop to be a welcoming place where people are free to be themselves and express who they are.
I think that's pretty nice.
It's a lovely idea.
And as an added bonus, Reneea and Charlotte are enjoying some family bonding time by volunteering to run the place.
They plan to take their swap shop out of the garage and into a shop front on the street so that more people can stop by and find what they need.
Good luck, Reneea and Charlotte.
And now it's time for...
WoW Of The Week. The thing that made me go wow about the diary would be how it got from Antarc de Cartier here because it could have been a penguin, it could have been flying fish.
A tip shop is a place that sorts through and sells old items to stop them being thrown out and sent to landfill.
At a tip shop in Hobart, in Tasmania, a worker was sorting through a box of donations and they spotted an old notebook.
It didn't look particularly special.
It just looked like any other old roughed -up book full of homework or shopping lists.
I think it must have been a really bad book that people threw away because they couldn't understand the fancy writing.
It might be a really rare book that's worth a lot of money.
Good thoughts! The tip shop worker felt there was something special about this book, so they opened it up to take a look inside.
It turns out this old book was actually the diary of Antarctic expeditioner David Johns.
David Johns was a scientist who worked on heaps of cool projects during his lifetime.
For one year, back in 1957, David explored Antarctica studying something called cosmic rays.
He kept a diary of his research, his discoveries and his everyday life on this big icy continent.
1957 was a big year for science in Antarctica, so the discovery of David's diary, it's got people pretty excited.
That's amazing. I really want to read the entire thing.
Maybe like a penguin swallowed it or something and then, like, swam to, let's say, just like another place in the world and then regurgitated it and then someone else found it and put it in the bin.
It turns out the diary was thrown away by accident.
David, the scientist, died a few years ago and the diary ended up in the wrong box and sent to the tip shop.
David's family are very pleased the book's been found.
They're going to donate it to the National Museum of Australia.
That way, more people will be able to read the diary and learn more about David's awesome adventures and remember his story and shine a brighter light on Australia's awesome scientific history.
And that's it, my friends, that's the end of The Countdown.
Thank you so much for your help.
Thank you. Thank you, Ruby.
You're very welcome.
I'll catch you next week with five fresh stories.
Bye, Ruby. Bonne nuit, Ruby.
Bye, Ruby. See you later.
Or as they say in Dutch, doey.
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