Author Archives: Chompsky

Behold: Messier 77 – a spiral galaxy in the constellation of Cetus, the Sea Monster, a social-distancing-appropriate 47 million light years away. To wit:

At that estimated distance, this gorgeous island universe is about 100 thousand light-years across. Also known as NGC 1068, its compact and very bright core is well studied by astronomers exploring the mysteries of supermassive black holes in active Seyfert galaxies. M77 and its active core glows bright at x-ray, ultraviolet, visible, infrared, and radio wavelengths. The featured sharp image of M77 was taken by the Hubble Space Telescope and is dominated by the (visible) red light emitted by hydrogen. The image shows details of the spiral’s winding spiral arms as traced by obscuring dust clouds, and red-tinted star forming regions close in to the galaxy’s luminous core.

(Image: Hubble, NASA, ESA; Processing & License: Judy Schmidt)

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Behold: the Newron EV-1 – an electric motorcycle from French company Newron with a body carved from your choice of hardwood. Inside, the battery pack and motor deliver 300km of range for a 40 minute full charge, 0-100km/h in three seconds, and a top speed of 220 km/h. 

Production starts in the post-pandemic utopia of 2021, only twelve will be made and yours starts at €60,000.

uncrate

‘sup?

This afternoon.

Rush, County Dublin

(H/T: Cara)

UPDATE:

From another angle.

UPDATE:

https://twitter.com/mccabekatie98/status/1239928620950466563

An image taken in Guatemala in late 2019. Lights from small towns are visible in the foreground behind the huge Pacaya volcano. But why does Saturn appear so big? To wit:

It doesn’t — what is pictured are foreground clouds on Earth crossing in front of the Moon. The Moon shows a slight crescent phase with most of its surface visible by reflected Earthlight known as ashen glow. The Sun directly illuminates the brightly lit lunar crescent from the bottom, which means that the Sun must be below the horizon and so the image was taken before sunrise.This double take-inducing picture was captured on 2019 December 24, two days before the Moon slid in front of the Sun to create a solar eclipse. 

(Image: Francisco Sojuel)

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