Author Archives: Chompsky

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d-mCuAQlF6U

Footage by the pioneering French engineer and cinematograph inventor Louis Lumière of a snowball fight on a street in Lyon from 1896, upscaled and colourised by Joaquim Campa using the open source software DeOldify.

Your man on the bike, though. Classic bombardment.

Plus ça change…

twistedsifter

Behold: the Aston Martin V12 Speedster – a breezy call-back to the open-cockpit (you’ll be wearing a racing helmet) prototype race cars of the 50s and 60s.

Designed from scratch in a year by Aston Martin’s Q division and completely unchanged from the initial concept, the car is currently undergoing road-testing. The twin-turbo 700bhp racer wears a swooping carbon fibre shell on a bonded aluminium chassis with roadholding assisted by adaptive dampers and massive carbon brakes.

Only 88 will be made and they may all be sold already so you can put away that €841,000 in used twenties.

uncrate

Behold: Ou4 (in blue), and Sh2-129 (in red), aka the Giant Squid Nebula enclosed by the downward flapping wings of the Flying Bat Nebula as seen against the backdrop of the constellation of Cepheus. Quite a shot. To wit:

 Composed with 55 hours of narrowband image data, the telescopic field of view is 3 degrees or 6 Full Moons across. Discovered in 2011 by French astro-imager Nicolas Outters, the Squid Nebula’s alluring bipolar shape is distinguished here by the telltale blue-green emission from doubly ionized oxygen atoms. Though apparently completely surrounded by the reddish hydrogen emission region Sh2-129, the true distance and nature of the Squid Nebula have been difficult to determine. Still, a more recent investigation suggests Ou4 really does lie within Sh2-129 some 2,300 light-years away. Consistent with that scenario, Ou4 would represent a spectacular outflow driven by HR8119, a triple system of hot, massive stars seen near the center of the nebula. The truly giant Squid Nebula would physically be nearly 50 light-years across.

(Image: Yannick Akar)

apod

Behold: the (figuratively) frosty expanse of Mare Frigoris in the far north of the Moon. To wit:

Also known as the Sea of Cold, it stretches across the familiar lunar nearside in this close up of the waxing gibbous Moon’s north polar region. Dark-floored, 95 kilometre wide crater Plato is just left of the centre. Sunlit peaks of the lunar Alps (Montes Alpes) are highlighted below and right of Plato, between the more southern Mare Imbrium (Sea of Rains) and Mare Frigoris. The prominent straight feature cutting through the mountains is the lunar Alpine Valley (Vallis Alpes). Joining the Mare Imbrium and Mare Frigoris, the lunar valley is about 160 kilometres long and up to 10 kilometres wide.

Yes, it does look a bit like Mike Pence’s head with a fly on it.

(Image: Matt Smith)

apod

Behold: the 1952 Ferrari Arno XI Hydroplane – developed to set the speed record in the 800kg class by Cantieri Timossi and the Ferrari Scuderia F1 team.

Fitted with a race-prepped Grand Prix engine adapted to burn methanol, the 502bhp speedboat driven by Achille Castoldi set a 150.49mph (242.2km’h) record that still stands today.

Currently undergoing a complete restoration by Ferrari Classiche, it’s available to buy (complete with full documentation, hundreds of period photographs, handwritten notes from Ferrari’s engineers, and a copy of the U.I.M. record certification that attests to Castoldi’s 1953 speed record.)

Price on application

uncrate