Starship Asterisk*

Perfect!

Congratulations, apod, and a big thank you to all who work to make it happen. I start my day with apod. Puts the remainder of the day into a healthier perspective.

Beautiful! This looks like a Maxfield Parrish painting!

What is the significance of the red arrow associated with the blue dot which, according to the explanation, represents our location? The red arrow is not mentioned in the explanation. Thanks in advance for any help. Overall, very interesting! Based on the video at the bottom of this page https://pu...

What is the significance of the red arrow associated with the blue dot which, according to the explanation, represents our location? The red arrow is not mentioned in the explanation. Thanks in advance for any help. Overall, very interesting!

Thanks, John. No offense taken. A good reminder that I should be more careful/wary in my use of language. Like you, I've noted with dismay that not all who visit this site seem interested in furthering the cause of good science.

I was merely using the term "game trails" to point out and to describe what strike me as interesting surface disturbances. Sorry if some folks actually took this literally. I've done considerable hiking in terrain similar to this in Arizona, USA. If I saw disturbances such as these in Ariz...

JohnD wrote:
I fear you have your curiousity set to stun!

John

And your curiosity is set to? Some natural force(s) caused distinct surface disturbances having the appearance of what -- if found on Earth -- might easily be taken for game trails or hiking trails. And you're not curious about that?

My mind translates 5 meters as about 16 feet. Is that correct? If so ,then "Baby Remarkable" is about the size of a bungalow, and the 'game trails' are fairly narrow. I think I see another 'trickle trail' coming down from the right (as we look at it) shoulder, and ending just to the right...

My mind translates 5 meters as about 16 feet. Is that correct? If so ,then "Baby Remarkable" is about the size of a bungalow, and the 'game trails' are fairly narrow. I think I see another 'trickle trail' coming down from the right (as we look at it) shoulder, and ending just to the right...

Would be helpful if we could see a close-up of these disturbances. They certainly appear at first glance to be real artifacts. But if they had been here over the sort of time period dating from when something such as Alpine transhumance might have taken place wouldn't they have been washed out long ...

I'd guess that the fine sand is simply a wind-blown dune, but that's just a quick, off-the-cuff guess. The dune strikes me as less odd than the two "game trails." Will be eager to read what the experts have to say!

What are scientists saying about the two rather distinct, more or less parallel "game trails" leading away from the rover's location toward Mt. Remarkable's summit?

geckzilla wrote: Anyway, the soil is not actually white.

Thank you for this clarification regarding the color of the soil, geckzilla. I was going to ask the same question. The APOD image definitely makes it look white.

With reluctance and apologies for being a spoil sport and interrupting the flow of talk about cats, I'd just throw in a brief comment about the apod: somebody should talk with those Fins about light pollution! How about installing downward facing street lamps such as those in Tucson Arizona, which w...

Thanks, Chris; and that's what suggested to me that the pair of stars we were discussing -- because they exhibit faint spikes -- might be relatively nearby, as also suggested in a comment Ann made regarding their relative motion.

Thanks for the link to the Wikipedia item, geckzilla. But even the image in the Wiki item seems to contradict your statement that diffraction spikes are not a good indicator of distance. The (apparently) more nearby sources of light have spikes, whereas the seemingly more distant ones don't. Not int...

in any case, I still find it quite likely that they are a small pair of relatively nearby stars, moving quickly through space and changing their position in relation to their Seyfert Sextet background. Ann Thank you, Ann (and others), for all the interesting analysis of this image. Regarding the di...

You're welcome, Smitty. I hope the discussion of stars isn't too distracting from pictures of cats. Well . . . now that you mention it, Anthony, I was beginning to wonder whether perhaps I'd accidentally logged on to Facebook rather than an APOD discussion forum. I've noticed that these discussions...

Other beautiful double and multiple stars visible through a small telescope during this season include Gamma Andromedae at the northeastern end of Andromeda's brighter leg, Castor in Gemini, and Sigma Orionis in the eastern end of Orion's belt. Thank you for the tips on other pretty binaries, Antho...

Chris, yes, now that you mention it, Albireo it is! Thank you for refreshing my memory. What a beautiful pair, even in a small telescope!

Thanks, geckzilla. The slight specular spikes on the pair suggests that they're nearer us, perhaps within our Milky Way? I recall seeing a beautiful yellow-purple pair of binary stars somewhere in the night sky, but don't recall offhand exactly where. Lyra perhaps?

Can't help being curious about the bright pair (perhaps a binary star pair?) to the right and slightly above center in the image. The leftmost member of the pair appears to have a slightly yellowish tint, whereas the other has a bluer tint. I'm assuming this pair is unrelated to Seyfert's Sextet, bu...

Mea culpa! In a futile, lame defense of my own indefensible position on this, I'd have appreciated having the link appear where the eye-brow-raising statement was made, but that's just a nit pic. Case closed so far as I'm concerned.

Thank you, neufer; that's helpful! My original point was simply that this link (or one like it) should have been included in the APOD which sparked all this dialogue. But better late than never. And yes, I know, we can all go out and do our own research to answer such questions, but, again, some spo...