The Ultimate Trivia Thread

[Luffy]

The planet Mars is brown. According to the New Scientist, recent NASA images were tweaked using filters to make it appear red.

[Glorfindel]

[pdurrant]

Originally Posted by Luffy

The planet Mars is brown. According to the New Scientist, recent NASA images were tweaked using filters to make it appear red.

Not entirely accurate. For details, see this link at the NASA web site.

Since then, other landers have sent back many more, better, colour pictures of the surface.

[crich70]

Originally Posted by pdurrant

Not entirely accurate. For details, see this link at the NASA web site.

Since then, other landers have sent back many more, better, colour pictures of the surface.

Yep. I think actually that there is no one color for Mars as the coloring is from Iron Oxide (more commonly known as rust) and it varies in color. Sometimes it's a yellowish color, sometimes brown, sometimes red, etc.

[Luffy]

Okay thanks, though my source for trivia is usually sound. I myself was a bit absent-minded while choosing the info. This one was particularly unimpressive, now that I think about it.

[pdurrant]

Originally Posted by Luffy

Okay thanks, though my source for trivia is usually sound. I myself was a bit absent-minded while choosing the info. This one was particularly unimpressive, now that I think about it.

No, I think it was a good one. It is interesting that obtaining colour images of distant places is difficult. I was especially interested to find that some of the apparent colour is due to the colour of the sunlight at the surface of Mars.

[crich70]

Originally Posted by pdurrant

No, I think it was a good one. It is interesting that obtaining colour images of distant places is difficult. I was especially interested to find that some of the apparent colour is due to the colour of the sunlight at the surface of Mars.

Interesting. And I guess that makes sense too as they do have dust storms on Mars and no doubt there is a lot of stuff in the atmosphere.

[Solitaire1]

David Bowie's real name is David Jones (he changed it to avoid confusion with Davy Jones of The Monkees).

[crich70]

Originally Posted by Solitaire1

David Bowie's real name is David Jones (he changed it to avoid confusion with Davy Jones of The Monkees).

Makes sense. Michael Keaton's actual birth name is Michael Douglas and he did the same thing to avoid confusion with Kirk Douglas's son.

[Solitaire1]

Originally Posted by Solitaire1

David Bowie's real name is David Jones (he changed it to avoid confusion with Davy Jones of The Monkees).

Originally Posted by crich70

Makes sense. Michael Keaton's actual birth name is Michael Douglas and he did the same thing to avoid confusion with Kirk Douglas's son.

I've got a book that lists the real names of individuals. For actors, it's a requirement that you not use a name that is already in use by another actor. Due to this, many actors have to choose an alternate name. As an example: There was already a western actor named Tom Conway, so Tom Conway became Tim Conway.

New trivia item:

Per Wikipedia, Helvetica was originally named Neue Haas Grotesk.

[Luffy]

The tongue of a woodpecker can extend to two-thirds of its body-length, has sticky saliva, is covered in vicious barbs and has an ear at the end of it.

[kindlekitten]

That's actually kind of disturbing

[pdurrant]

Owls can turn their heads through more than 500°, much more than one full turn (from full 'left' to full 'right').

[Solitaire1]

In addition to playing Lurch in the TV series The Addams Family, he also played Thing.

[kindlekitten]

Originally Posted by Solitaire1

In addition to playing Lurch in the TV series The Addams Family, he also played Thing.

Somehow I think part of your post went missing