Author Archives: Chompsky

Behold: the Ducati X Lamborghini Diavel 1260 – a limited edition collaboration between two of Italy’s leading marques, to wit, an angular carbon fibre remake of the Diavel cruiser inspired by Lamborghini’s all-electric Sian FKP 37.

Only 630 will be made (a nod to 1963 – Lambo’s founding year) and, though the colour scheme is shared, the 157bhp 1260cc Diavel engine remains resolutely fossil-fuelled.

Yours next year for around €38,000.

uncrate

Behold: NGC 224, aka Messier 31, aka the Andromeda galaxy. And you can. With the unaided eye. Even though it’s 2.5 million light years away. To wit:

Most other apparent denizens of the night sky — stars, clusters, and nebulae — typically range from a few hundred to a few thousand light-years away and lie well within our own Milky Way Galaxy. Given its distance, light from Andromeda is likely also the oldest light that you can see. Also known as M31, the Andromeda Galaxy dominates the center of the featured zoomed image, taken from the dunes of Bahía Creek, Patagonia, in southern Argentina. The image is a combination of 45 background images with one foreground image — all taken with the same camera and from the same location within 90 minutes. M110, a satellite galaxy of Andromenda is visible just below and to the left of M31’s core. As cool as it may be to see this neighboring galaxy to our Milky Way with your own eyes, long duration camera exposures can pick up many faint and breathtaking details. Recent data indicates that our Milky Way Galaxy will collide and combine with the similarly-sized Andromeda galaxy in a few billion years.

(Image: Gerardo Ferrarino)

apod

A nicely baked short by Matthew Salton – and all true for all you know. To wit:

In 1968 Patty was a flight attendant, who realised she could smuggle prime pot in from Jamaica with relative ease, given her line of work. She is 77 years old now, and this is her version of what happened.

curiousbrain

Recently graduated animator Alan Jennings introduces us to the everyday wonders of Mr Bill Jennings, aka ‘Captain Zero’ aka ‘Willie Lump Lump’ aka ‘Toots’ of Newbury, Vermont – a man of many mundane and fabulous talents. To wit:

“I once saw him twirl a couch on a single finger.” 

awesomer

Behold: NGC 7293, aka, the Helix Nebula – the brightest and closest example of a planetary nebula – the expanding, glowing shell of ionised gas created in the last days of a Sun-like star. One day, our own dear Sol might look like this. To wit:

The outer gasses of the star expelled into space appear from our vantage point as if we are looking down a helix. The remnant central stellar core, destined to become a white dwarf star, glows in light so energetic it causes the previously expelled gas to fluoresce. The Helix Nebula […] lies about 700 light-years away towards the constellation of the Water Bearer (Aquarius) and spans about 2.5 light-years. The featured picture was taken with the Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope (CFHT) located atop a dormant volcano in Hawaii, USA. A close-up of the inner edge of the Helix Nebula shows complex gas knots of unknown origin.

(Image: CFHT, Coelum, MegaCam, J.-C. Cuillandre (CFHT) & G. A. Anselmi (Coelum)

apod