A 2021 Audubon award-winning clip of a video taken by Bill Bryant of a hunting red-tailed hawk, floating on the wind, self-stabilising as it searches for small prey with its head held perfectly still.
Author Archives: Chompsky
Behold: M31, aka, the Andromeda galaxy – young blue stars circling galactic central point as seen in ultraviolet light.
2.5 million light years from Earth, Andromeda is the nearest major galaxy to our own Milky Way. Right next door, in cosmic terms. To wit:
Spanning about 230,000 light-years, it took 11 different image fields from NASA’s Galaxy Evolution Explorer (GALEX) satellite telescope to produce this gorgeous portrait of the spiral galaxy in ultraviolet light in 2003. While its spiral arms stand out in visible light images, Andromeda’s arms look more like rings in ultraviolet. The rings are sites of intense star formation and have been interpreted as evidence that Andromeda collided with its smaller neighbouring elliptical galaxy M32 more than 200 million years ago. The Andromeda galaxy and our own comparable Milky Way galaxy are the most massive members of the Local Group of galaxies and are projected to collide in several billion years — perhaps around the time that our Sun’s atmosphere will expand to engulf the Earth.
(Image: NASA, JPL-Caltech, GALEX)
Hot Wheels
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Behold: TEOREMA – a rendered concept from legendary Italian coach builder Pininfarina, presented as the “first-ever 100% virtually developed concept car.”
All-electric, fully autonomous and developed entirely using VR technology, the minimalist cabin has reclining lounge seats and not much else while the ballistic exterior has pronounced air channels straight out of the digital wind-tunnel.
Some day, this – or a version of it – may even go into production.
Until then, it’s just for looking at.
Touchdown
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https://twitter.com/HiIreland/status/1416699265909346304
Hot Wheels
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Behold: the Aston Martin Valhalla – stablemate to Aston Martin’s Valkyrie hypercar with a modified AMG Black hybrid drivetrain combining a V8 petrol engine and two electric motors.
All this generates 937bhp, a 100km/h time of 2.5 seconds and a top speed of 350km/h.
Active all-wheel-drive can put up to 100% of the electric motors’ output to either the front or rear axle of a car whose chassis and aerodynamic design were developed in collaboration with the Red Bull F1 team and legendary engineer Adrian Newey.
Price unconfirmed but rumoured to be around €675,000.
The distinctly orcish dinnerware assemblages of artist Glen Taylor – as if brutishly repaired in the aftermath of some unspeakable party.
Like kintsugi, only more frightening.
Eyes Front
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Woof Pack doggie daycare in Miami – masters of the canine group photo or serial dog ‘shoppin’ scamps?
You be the Judge.
Off Wanderly Wagon.
Behold: an ominous silhouette against a crowded star field along the tail of the constellation Scorpius, Some cosmic Orthanc or Barad-dûr perhaps? No really. To wit:
In fact, clumps of dust and molecular gas collapsing to form stars may well lurk within the dark nebula, a structure that spans almost 40 light-years across this gorgeous telescopic portrait. Known as a cometary globule, the swept-back cloud, is shaped by intense ultraviolet radiation from the OB association of very hot stars in NGC 6231, off the upper edge of the scene. That energetic ultraviolet light also powers the globule’s bordering reddish glow of hydrogen gas. Hot stars embedded in the dust can be seen as bluish reflection nebulae. This dark tower, NGC 6231, and associated nebulae are about 5,000 light-years away.
(Image: Data – Martin Pugh Processing – Rocco Sung)