Author Archives: Chompsky

Is there ever anything interesting to be seen in the direction opposite the Sun? How about an antisolar convergence of crepuscular rays? To wit:

 In the featured rare image taken from an airplane in mid-April, these beams were caught converging 180 degrees around, on the opposite side of the sky from the Sun, where they are called anticrepuscular rays. Therefore, it may look like something bright is shining at the antisolar point near the image centre, but actually it is reverse-shining because, from your direction, light is streaming in, not out.

All clear? OK, let’s move on.

(Image: Juraj Patekar)

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Behold: the Charge Electric Ford Mustang – one of 499 first generation (1965 – 1973) Mustangs with their oily old gizzards swapped out for quad electric motors by UK EV startup Charge.

The 64Kw/h battery is good for 320km in cruise mode but considerably less if you engage the full 536bhp four wheel drive. Top speed is 240km/h but the thing will accelerate to 100km/h in less than 3 seconds.

Debuting next month at the Goodwood Festival of Speed and yours for €335,000.

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A close-up of the weathered craters of Acidalia Planitia taken by the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter’s HiRISE camera. But wait, isn’t that a key location in the Andy Weir (and Ridley Scott) yarn ‘The Martian’? Why, yes, it is. To wit:

The novel chronicles the adventures of Mark Watney, an astronaut stranded at the fictional Mars mission Ares 3 landing site corresponding to the coordinates of this cropped HiRISE frame. For scale Watney’s 6-meter-diametre habitat at the site would be about 1/10th the diameter of the large crater. Of course, the Ares 3 landing coordinates are only about 800 kilometers north of the (real life) Carl Sagan Memorial Station, the 1997 Pathfinder landing site.

(Image: HiRISE, MRO, LPL (U. Arizona), NASA)

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