Check out this fantastic image which, unless I’m very much mistaken, appears to have captured the exact moment someone was utilizing the very latest in interdimensional portal technology!

Well, it’s a fantastic image anyway

Thanks to Clive!

The Westerbork Synthesis Radio Telescope in the Netherlands is:

an aperture synthesis interferometer that consists of a linear array of 14 antennas arranged on a 2.7 km East-West line.

Um… So, aperture synthesis is when a collection of telescopes are banded together to achieve the same “resolving power” as an instrument the size of the entire collection. And an ‘interferometer’ is, ah… best explained on the Interferometry Wikipedia page! There’s 12 antennas right next to each other, the easternmost of which can be moved on rail tracks, and a little further to the east are two further antennas, whose locations can also be adjusted.

The WSRT is often combined with other telescopes, including the Lovell Telescope), to perform Very Long Baseline Interferometry (VLBI) observations as part of the European VLBI Network.

Thanks to Paul Boven and Sven van Heel.

Off the island of Guam, we find a floating dry-dock. I’d assumed the cargo was craned into the dry dock, but instead the dry dock slightly submerges itself (just like a submarine) so that the ship (or in this case, a real submarine) can drive into the u-shape of the dry dock. The dry dock then pumps out the water to raise itself and the cargo above the surface. Simple really.

Guam have three different floating dry-docks, this is the largest and is worth a staggering $24 million. The submarine is the USS San Francisco which stopped by here in January 2005 for emergency repairs after hitting uncharted underwater rocks.

Thanks: Martin Kaae

Edit: fixed the link.

Thanks to this weekend’s Google Maps image update, we can now see the whole of the Netherlands in high-resolution. That’s everything in the whole country covered. Everything!

Including these floating brothels on the river Vecht, Utrecht.

This is the infamous ‘Zandpad’, one of the legal prostitution areas of Utrecht, where we can see a line of cars parked opposite the boats (whose owners are presumably in flagrante), several people out of their cars, and you can also see the many planks that connect the boats to the road. I’m assuming there’s one plank per lady.

There’s a ground-level picture and some further info at Wikipedia, but I’m not sure if it’s interesting or not – it’s in Dutch

Thanks to Arjan.

Built on reclaimed land within Casablanca, Morocco is the Mosque of Hassan II – the second largest religious monument in the world.

Work started in 1986 to celebrate the 60th Birthday of Morocco’s then king, Hassan II. The most impressive part of this building is easily the world’s tallest minaret at 210m tall. Clearly seen from miles around the minaret is further highlighted by a green laser beam that each night points from the top towards Mecca.

Ground level photos and Wikipedia link

Thanks: Ross Burnett, Frank Castle, gabe & Patrick