Psychogeeks

Ramblings of an armchair astronomer and inveterate geek

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Entries from April 2007

Kobo Deluxe

April 25th, 2007 · No Comments

One of my favourite time wasters is a small game called Kobo Deluxe. Kobo Deluxe is a fast-paced multi-way scrolling shoot-em-up. The game is an update on the original XKobo by Akira Higuchi and bears a passing resemblance to Bosconian. The game’s simplicity only serves to heighten its very addictive nature. It [...]

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Tags: Computing · Games

Antenna Galaxies

April 17th, 2007 · No Comments

The image above shows detail of the interacting portion of two colliding galaxies: NGC 4038 and NGC 4039, otherwise known as the Antenna Galaxies. This is an extract of an image taken by the Hubble Space Telescope.
The Antenna Galaxies get their name from their appearance in optical images taken from the ground. Visible [...]

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Tags: Astronomy · Images

Valles Marineris, A Martian Grand Canyon

April 12th, 2007 · 1 Comment

The image above shows the Valles Marineris (Mariner Valley) canyon system. At over 3000 kilometres in length, up to 8 kilometres deep, and Valles Marineris absolutely dwarfs Earth’s Grand Canyon. In contrast, the Grand Canyon is a mere 446 kilometres long and 1 kilometre deep.
The two Viking Mars missions each consisted of [...]

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Tags: Astronomy · Images

V838 Monocerotis Light Echoes

April 11th, 2007 · No Comments

The Hubble Space Telescope image above is of the region surrounding the star V838 Monocerotis. V838 is the large orange-red star, which lies about 20000 light-years away towards the edge of our galaxy. The naming of this star betrays it as a variable star, the 838th found in the constellation Monoceros. This [...]

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Tags: Astronomy · Images

Volcanic Plumes on Io

April 10th, 2007 · 1 Comment

On June 28, 1997 the Galileo spacecraft was directed to take a series of photographs of Jupiter’s moon Io. Of interest were the volcanic features glimpsed by the two Voyager spacecraft as they flew past nearly twenty years earlier in 1979. The image above is an extract from the resulting mosaic image showing [...]

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Tags: Astronomy · Images