Chris Lintott’s Universe

This post on the Galaxy Zoo blog describes about 40% of the reason why I haven’t had time to post on here much recently.

Then can I recommend this ebay listing?

Background story is here.

Edit : Ebay have removed the listing, which was for the Jodrell Bank telescope. If anyone has a screenshot, let me know.

Next time I have a month spare (!) I’m going to spend a large chunk of it going through the HiRISE images. HiRISE is the main camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, and it produces stunning images of the surface. In fact, the images are so good that if they were of Earth they’d be classified. The detail in each and every one is, as you might imagine, stunning, but one of their latest just knocked me flat. Here it is.

That’s what an avalanche looks like from above. The bright spots on the left are fresh snow, and the fall of snow or ice has kicked up dust over on the right. They’ve even found a before and after image. Like I said, stunning - and think what must be in the other 16.8 TB (yes, TeraBytes) of data that they’ve released.

Update : The entry above was written on the train this morning, and as Bunny pointed out in the comments, I missed an image that is equally stunning. This is what happens when you look home from Mars: