Great View Of Jupiter's Surface!

[cloudsweeper]

Well, according to a 1950s encyclopaedia that is!

Doug.

[John]

Looks like Mordor !

 

[niallk]

I love looking back at really old encyclopaedias - I've one from 1930s which talks about the great Andromeda nebula, and how a passing star drew out a cigar shaped lobe of material from the sun which cooled to form the planets...

It's amazing to see the unbelievable progress in understanding over less than 100 yrs... and we're still learning!

Oh and I had a book which speculated that Venus might be hot  swampy and home to dinosaurs.

Edited November 17, 2020 by niallk

[John]

I have some old Will's cigarette cards from the 1920's and they label a galaxy as a "Spiral Nebula". The text on the reverse shows how little was understood about the nature of these objects then:

 

[Swoop1]

39 minutes ago, niallk said:

I love looking back at really old encyclopaedias - I've one from 1930s which talks about the great Andromeda nebula, and how a passing star drew out a cigar shaped lobe of material from the sun which cooled to form the planets...

It's amazing to see the unbelievable progress in understanding over less than 100 yrs... and we're still learning!

Oh and I had a book which speculated that Venus might be hot  swampy and home to dinosaurs.

One of my favourite repeat reads is Robert Heinlein's Space Cadet which includes a section where our space cadet rescues a former cadet colleague from captivity by Venusians.

[cloudsweeper]

Their impression of Mars however is a lot better.........

Doug.

[John]

The 1920's cigarette card thoughts on the Martian landscape have obviously been influenced by Schiaparelli and Lowell