Author Archives: Chompsky

Behold: the 1990 BMW (E30) M3 Convertible – one of the best (and most sought after) driver cars of its day.

Only 700 were made between 1986 and 1992  and this vehicle is one of only twelve, unequipped with catalytic converters, produced for the Spanish market.

With just three owners, a recent refresh and a new canvas top, the car will be offered at auction this September in very decent and near-original condition.

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Behold: Ahuna Mons – the largest mountain on the dwarf planet Ceres – part of the asteroid belt that lies between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter. To wit:

Ahuna Mons is like nothing that humanity has ever seen before. For one thing, its slopes are garnished not with old craters but young vertical streaks. The new hypothesis, based on numerous gravity measurements, holds that a bubble of mud rose from deep within the dwarf planet and pushed through the icy surface at a weak point rich in reflective salt — and then froze. The bright streaks are thought to be similar to other recently surfaced material such as visible in Ceres’ famous bright spots. The featured double-height digital image was constructed from surface maps taken of Ceres in 2016 by the robotic Dawn mission. Successfully completing its mission in 2018, Dawn continues to orbit Ceres even though it has exhausted the fuel needed to keep its antennas pointed toward Earth.

(Image: Dawn Mission, NASA, JPL-Caltech, UCLA, MPS/DLR/IDA)

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Behold: NGC 7646, two spiral galaxies also known as The Mice, on account of their long tails. Having already passed through one another, the scamps have been pulling themselves apart ever since. To wit:

Their long tails are drawn out by strong gravitational tides rather than collisions of their individual stars. Because the distances are so large, the cosmic interaction takes place in slow motion — over hundreds of millions of years. They will probably collide again and again over the next billion years until they coalesce toform a single galaxy. NGC 4676 lies about 300 million light-years away toward the constellation of Bernice’s Hair (Coma Berenices) and are likely members of the Coma Cluster of Galaxies. Not often imaged in small telescopes, this field of view catches the faint tidal tails several hundred thousand light-years long.

(Image: Bruce Waddington)

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