PORTLAND, Maine — This week NASA released a stunning new image of Jupiter made with the powerful James Webb Space Telescope, which launched into orbit late last year.
A nearly three-dimensional picture shows our Solar System’s familiar red swirling gas giant in a whole new light. Literally. A brilliant aurora extends over Jupiter’s poles. Also, the planet’s famous Great Red Spot — a continuous storm so large that it engulfs the Earth — reflects light from the Sun, making it appear as white as other clouds.
The composite image was created using multiple layers of near-infrared light, undetectable by the human eye. Scientists have converted the invisible light captured by the web into colors that humans can see.
This is the latest in a series of spectacular photographs made possible by state-of-the-art telescopes. Webb has already given us dazzling looks in the Carina Nebula, Southern Ring Nebula, Stefan’s Quintet, and five galactic mind-bending groups.
Additionally, NASA announced Wednesday that Webb detected carbon dioxide, a possible indicator of life, in the atmosphere around it. planets outside our solar system.
But NASA has not indicated when it will next release a new batch of photos and discoveries.
Until then, earthbound scientists will have to entertain themselves with mere sci-fi. Likewise, local journalists will have to look from all angles to fill newspapers during his late-August slump when all news sources seem to be on vacation.
With those two things in mind, we asked four Maine astronomers to recommend a sci-fi movie that will keep us all entertained at the end of summer.
Here’s what they told us.
Rob Burgess The University of Brunswick is the president and founding member of the Southern Maine Astronomers. At the top of his sci-fi list is his 1954 black-and-white cult classic, “Tobor the Great,” which depicts a robot built to pilot a spaceship.
“This was the future. Big, scary mechanical robots,” Burgess said. “I think he was about six or seven when I saw this movie when he was about to enter the space race.”
In a standalone flick, Tobor is stolen by a secret agent from another country, and a boy with a psychic connection to a giant machine must help rescue it from bad guys.
“By the way, Tobor is the robot spelled backwards, which I thought was cool,” says Burgess.
Also on Burgess’ list is 1997’s Contact, based on Carl Sagan’s novel of the same name.
In the film, a scientist played by Jodie Foster is given the means to travel to cosmic coordinates sent by aliens.
“Foster travels into this predetermined space and comes to understand the extent of intelligent life in the universe, but no one believes her,” said Burgess. It excels in its sci-fi effect and in its highly intelligent depiction of the kinds of social, political and religious divisions society will eventually face in learning that we are not alone.”
Burgess was listed in Spielberg’s classics “Close Encounters of the Third Kind,” “The Martian,” starring Matt Damon, and “The Blob,” a 1958 film about gelatinous carnivorous aliens with a healthy appetite for Earthlings. concluded. A young Steve McQueen.
“The Blob ransacked the town, devoured all sorts of people, and ended up trapping three people in a diner. The Blob shrinks when a fire breaks out and firefighters spray cold CO2 fire extinguishers,” he said. Burgess said. “Finally the army drops on Antarctica and saves the world. Why didn’t I like this movie as a kid?”
John Meader A science educator based in Central Maine who runs the Polaris Mobile Planetarium.
Meader said it’s a difficult question to ponder.
“I teach astronomy and science, but I watch science fiction movies only occasionally,” he said. “Honestly, it’s not the genre I’m looking for.”
Like Burgess, Meader said he liked “The Martian” and thought most of the details of the science were correct. Ron Thompsonalso counts “The Martian” as a favorite.
“It had a lot of good science built into it, and most of the time I believed it,” Thompson said. “Sometimes you don’t know until you get there.”
In the film, Matt Damon’s character is stranded on Mars and must grow food to feed himself.
Ed Gleesonis the director of the Southworth Planetarium at the University of Southern Maine in Portland and loves the movie Blade Runner. Her 1982 classic starring Harrison Ford and Rutger Hauer is based on the novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? By Philip K. Dick.
In it, a lone wolf must track down an artificial human called a replicant, and all the while pondering what “real” or “artificial” really means.
Gleeson remembers first seeing the film as a sleepy teenager while sleeping through parts of the futuristic film set in 2019.
“After that, I couldn’t distinguish between movie scenes and my own dream fiction,” he said.
About a year later, he bought a VHS copy of “Blade Runner” and watched it from start to finish.
“I found this cinematic masterpiece to be almost indistinguishable from the fantastic,” Gleeson said.
Since then, he’s seen it countless times and said it never gets old.
“It served as an introduction to the metaphysical concept of existence,” Gleason said. “Hearing Rutger Hauer’s brief yet profound monologue of death toward the end of the film is a face-to-face confrontation with the existentialist anxieties that unsettle us all.”
In this film, Hauer plays the leader of a runaway replicant. He utters his iconic 42-word speech before his prescribed life expires in a rooftop rainstorm.
“I’ve seen things you wouldn’t believe. Attacking attack ships from Orion’s shoulder. Saw C-beams glow in the dark near Tannhäuser Gate. Like tears in the rain.” , all those moments are lost in time. Time to die.”
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