Extremely Cool Astronomy News

Slick · #1 May 23rd, 2003, 09:39 PM

Yes, the diagram is as how I think the pic was taken.

The best way I can explain it is that the pic was obviously taken with some telescopic lens and (after a bit of research) the diameter of Jupiter is 11.21 times Earth's diameter. So, even though it is farther away, the planets appear roughly similar in size. If they were at the same radius from the camera, Jupiter would take up much more of the picture.

Slick.

[ May 23, 2003, 20:40: Message edited by: Slick ]

Slick · #2 May 23rd, 2003, 09:47 PM

Holy Smokes! When I hit reply for the previous post, there were no Posts after the one with Geo's pic. And it certainly didn't take me long to type it. All the in-between Posts came in at about the same minute.

Slick.

Aloofi · #3 May 23rd, 2003, 10:01 PM

Wait a minute, they say that the picture is colored!!!
What the heck that means? that it isn't real?

minipol · #4 May 24th, 2003, 12:23 AM

It's not because they "retouch" a picture that it's not real. It means they make the colours clearer so you can see the colours better. No conspiracy here

Baron Munchausen · #5 May 24th, 2003, 02:04 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by Aloofi:
Wait a minute, they say that the picture is colored!!!
What the heck that means? that it isn't real?

The picture is colorized because the Mars Global Surveyor camera is black and white only. They say that they used actual color photos of Earth and Jupiter to sample the colors, though.

And I think the camera does have some magnification, so no you would not see earth (or Jupiter) like that with the naked eye if you were there.

Phoenix-D · #6 May 24th, 2003, 02:44 AM

"Wait a minute, they say that the picture is colored!!!
What the heck that means? that it isn't real?"

Hint: most scientific results you find for public view have been massaged in one way or another. The difference is whether they tell you or not.

This is a harmless case of that. Its actually two black and white pictures layered together; in the actual earth image, Jupiter would be too faint to see (not enough exposure time)

Erax · #7 May 26th, 2003, 11:54 PM

The following info (taken from a local popular science magazine) has some relation to this thread's topic :

"Last year, a discreet star known as V838 Monocerotis suddenly became brighter. In a matter of months, it was emitting 600,000 times more light than our Sun and became the Milky Way's brightest star. It became visible from Earth with the help of a pair of binoculars, even though it is 19,500 light-years away. As it came, it went. It grew gradually darker until, now, it would take a powerful telescope and excellent eyesight to see it. University of Arizona researchers declared that they cannot simulate the star's behavior using current astrophysical theory."

Did anyone think, "Stellar Nucleonic Torpedo" ?