Thursday, November 06, 2008

I Wonder If Palin Knows This Is A Planet...



"This dramatic image of Jupiter is touted as the sharpest picture of the entire gas giant ever taken from the ground.The picture was made using a prototype instrument known as MAD (Multi-conjugate Adaptive optics Demonstrator) mounted on one of the European Southern Observatory's 8-meter diameter Very Large Telescope units in Chile. Working at infrared wavelengths the MAD instrument removes atmospheric blurring, the bane of earthbound telescopes, by using multiple guide stars and deformable mirrors to sense and correct for the distortions produced by turbulence in Earth's atmosphere." (link)

As James Earl once said: "Impressive. Mmmost impressive."

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