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The All New All New Groundspeak UK Pub Quiz


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Close enough for a Ding! That's both of Mars's moons, shot in real time by Curiosity this August, as Phobos overtook Deimos in its orbit and eclipsed it. Phobos was once thought to be artificial as it's very light (low in mass) for its size. It's also very dark in colour for a natural object. It orbits just 3,700 miles above the surface of Mars, making the two bodies the closest known orbiters in the solar system. Compare the 239,000 miles from the Earth to our Moon. Phobos rotates around Mars so quickly that, although its orbit isn't retrograde, it rises in the west and sets in the east. Here's a bit about the Mars flag.

Edited by Simply Paul
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I left this a while, but I was often the only kid with his hand up at school...

 

The problem came with the plural for Canale - the Italian for groove or channel - being Canali. To English ears, that meant canal; artificial structures. So we're looking for an Italian, with a telescope. I'd guess at Galileo but I suspect it's someone considerably later for the way it caught the public imagination rather than resulted in religious genocide. I know Cassini was later, but late enough? Not sure. But he's my guess :)

Edited by Simply Paul
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Not Da Vinci. :)

 

Scarpelli is getting very close indeed but it's not right although the date is definitely in the ballpark. The study was undertaken in Mars' opposition of 1877. The astronomer was the first to identify the 'canali' later misinterpreted as 'canal' as mentioned by Simply Paul in an earlier post.

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There are a heap of clues already given - the canali clue is probably the strongest. ;)

 

However, He was born in 1835 and died in 1910. He was an Italian astronomer and also a science historian. As well as his studies of Mars, he also showed that the Perseid and Leonid meteor showers were associated with comets, in particular, he proved that the orbit of the Leonids and the orbit of the comet Tempel Tuttle were the same leading him to form the hypothesis that meteor showers could be caused by cometary trails.

 

He has craters on both the Moon and Mars named after him.

 

Any takers?

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From the first post in the original thread:

 

Posted 19 May 2006 - 07:32 PM

 

Welcome to the Groundspeak Arms, come in, take your coat off - put your feet up! ;)

 

I'm going to ask a question, whoever answers correctly can post the next question and so on...

 

Rule 1 - No googling!

 

Rule 2 - Try and keep your question at the level someone in a pub quiz might be able to answer...

 

Hmmmmmm!

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From the first post in the original thread:

 

Posted 19 May 2006 - 07:32 PM

 

Welcome to the Groundspeak Arms, come in, take your coat off - put your feet up! ;)

 

I'm going to ask a question, whoever answers correctly can post the next question and so on...

 

Rule 1 - No googling!

 

Rule 2 - Try and keep your question at the level someone in a pub quiz might be able to answer...

 

Hmmmmmm!

 

All things are relative. Set a TV soap or a popular sport question and I'd be stumped. ;)

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:-( Can we relax the no-google rule in this one instance?
I suppose that would be up to Simply Paul as the owner of the quiz. I've no particular objection if he's ok with it. :)
Given it seems unlikely anyone knows this off the top of their heads, let the race to Google begin! (on this occasion. The standard rules apply generally)
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