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This week, we’ll be giving out two prizes in our contest — one to the first person to supply the correct answer, and one for the most creative (and wrong) answer. But we’re getting ahead of ourselves, seeing as how we haven’t told you the question yet. The question, obviously, is:
What is that thing?
The… thing at left is a small portion of a picture we like. Every day this week, we’ll be posting a different piece of the image. For the correct answer, we’ll need to know (a) what object the image depicts, (b) how the image was made, and (c) who made it. For the most creative answer… go wild! The prize is our new book, Scatterbrained. You’ve got until Friday night at 9 EDT.
This is a picture of the rock Vesta. About 500 kilometers across, it obrits out past Mars. The image is a false color conglomerate made by the hubble telescope. The small portion of the picture shown actually shows a large crater that covers pretty much it’s entire southern hemisphere. Another interesting tidbit, this ‘rock’ could possibly be reclassified as a planet by next week’s end.
posted by Drew Hicks on 8-21-2006 at 1:41 pm
OK. Contest answer. This is a map of the asteroid Vesta, taken by the Hubble Space Telescope, using false-color conglomerate mapping, attributed to B. Zellner (GSU), P. Thomas (Cornell), et al.,WFPC, HST, NASA
posted by Roger Nelson on 8-21-2006 at 1:54 pm
duh, its the bottom corner of a grateful dead tie-dye t-shirt!
posted by Casey Blackman on 8-21-2006 at 2:36 pm
This is actually a snapshot of the after effects of the Good Humor Man’s oil-leaking van parked over a mudhole in Anysmalltown, USA.
posted by Andi on 8-21-2006 at 2:53 pm
awww, too easy, all you had to do was G-image search “false color map” and it comes up within the first few pages. Check out the message boards at www.ken-jennings.com or the puzzles at www.thestone.com for some ideas on setting up some real google stumpers…
posted by Kim Ronson on 8-21-2006 at 3:32 pm
It’s an MRI of someone who works at MentalFloss and really likes their job.
posted by Lee Hatcher on 8-21-2006 at 4:11 pm
Best Guess:
It’s either a topographical or temperature gradient map. It’s difficult to tell if it’s the earth’s surface or night sky. I’ve made similar maps for geophysical use at work though.
Silly Guess:
Space eggs overeasy in a blue pan. Possibly a Warhol print, or a missing Seuss title (I do not like space eggs and ham…).
posted by Jason on 8-21-2006 at 4:22 pm
It’s a colorful blob! No, wait…
posted by Sandy on 8-21-2006 at 5:44 pm
Pam Anderson’s mammogram. The blue-shaded areas are the parts without silicon.
posted by Sheldon Siegel on 8-21-2006 at 6:31 pm
everyone knows it’s a chinese “1,000 year old egg” that was made in the 70’s and when it was opended it came out in a psychadelic pattern.
posted by Rachel on 8-21-2006 at 7:15 pm
I hate to be a spoilsport, but not only is it Vespa, I saw it right here as Yesterday’s NASA Astonomy Picture of the Day.
As for a most-creative answer:
“Walt Disney’s Wonderful World of Color (after Mr. D attended a ’60s screening of ‘Fantasia’ with a pot-smoking audience)”
A 99-mile-an-hour fastball at the instant it hits the umpire’s mask.
The terrible scene after Rainbow Brite jumped off the Empire State Building.
posted by Wendell on 8-21-2006 at 8:15 pm
Its an albino suffering from jaundice wearing green rimmed glaases and a blue ski mask. An amazing find for psychologists, wondering if someone in the inferior life of an albino would choose such odd fashion ornaments. The psychology apprenice taking the picture forgot to use red-eye reduction and futhermore wooshed some of the picture’s contents around in a do-it-yourself film developing gone wrong. The psycologist was very upset.
posted by Alec grieser on 8-21-2006 at 10:08 pm
Whatever it is, it looks very depressed…
posted by David C. Casey on 8-22-2006 at 4:36 am
It’s a corneal mapping image from a corneal topographer. The different colors represent different steepnesses of the cornea. The red areas are steep, the blue/green areas represent flatter portions. The information is used to give the eye doctor information about the shape of the cornea before and after refractive surgery. It can also be an aid in determining the correct contact lenses to use when a patient has a corneal condition such as astigmatism or keratoconus.
posted by Robert Alianiello on 8-22-2006 at 8:10 am
After years of better living through chemestry, it’s what Keith Richards sees first thing in the morning.
posted by Michael on 8-22-2006 at 8:15 am
Obviously, it is a photograph of the absorption of a food particle into the cell lining of a blood vessel using infrared, multi-chromatic x-ray technology - the colors represent the various mineral and chemical elements present.
posted by Bill on 8-22-2006 at 9:38 am
It the digitized version of The Scream
posted by saundie on 8-22-2006 at 4:35 pm
Judging from the tiny link between the two, I’ll steal from MST3k and say it’s amoeba porn. :P
posted by Sillstaw on 8-22-2006 at 6:19 pm
It is what The Predator(tm)sees while sitting on the beach on a cool summer evening while watching the sunset in between traveling thoughout the galaxy looking for things to kill. That was waaayy too easy!
Okay for my most creative answer it is…
posted by Jarred hanson on 8-22-2006 at 7:24 pm
Well this (of course) is quite simply the return of the 70’s.
posted by paan on 8-22-2006 at 8:25 pm
No no no - this image is clearly from that famous October 1983 issue of the Journal of Abstract Psychomythoanalyitics that generated the controversial “Rainbowgate” scandal. The good Doctors Igor Shalaylee and Eugene Pottergold were engaged in a two-year study of the Diptus Shamrocktum, popularly known as the North American Leprechaun.
This image, from the report, displays the Leprechaun’s point of view from inside the end of the rainbow. The controversy arose, as you will remember, when the subject of their study filed a legal claim against the two doctors, claiming they improperly stole his pot of gold. Catching up in them in the Caymans, Dr. Shalaylee passionately denied any wrong doing and claimed sanctuary in his new yacht.
posted by Aaron on 8-23-2006 at 11:05 am