[ExI] the vortices of Jupiter

Damien Broderick thespike at satx.rr.com
Wed Jul 2 07:36:06 UTC 2008


This looks really quite remarkable; I've done a bit of googling on 
the history of telescopic observation of Jupiter, and as far as I 
tell (am I right, though?) nothing could possibly have seen this well 
80 years ago--indeed, perhaps until the 1970s:

<http://www.noosfere.com/Showcase/IMAGES/amaz_2811.jpg>

http://www.scifi.com/sfw/interviews/sfw19051.html

<Arthur C. Clarke happily recalls that "at the age of 12 I saw my 
first science-fiction magazine, the November 1928 Amazing Stories.

"The cover is in front of me at the moment--and it really is amazing, 
for a reason which neither Hugo Gernsback nor artist Frank Paul could 
ever have guessed.

"A spaceship looking like a farm silo with picture windows is 
disgorging its exuberant passengers onto a tropical beach, above 
which floats the orange ball of Jupiter, filling half the sky. The 
foreground is, alas, improbable, because the temperature of the 
Jovian satellites is around minus 150 centigrade. But the giant 
planet is painted with such stunning accuracy that one could use the 
cover to make a very good case for precognition; Paul has shown 
turbulent cloud formations, cyclonic patterns and enigmatic white 
structures like earth-sized amoebae which were not revealed until the 
Voyager missions over 50 years later. How did he know?">

Damien Broderick




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