Amateur astronomers with their lenses turned toward Mars saw strange plumes bubble out from the normally round-appearing atmosphere of the Red Planet. The plumes lasted for around 10 days.

Scientists don't really know what caused it. But thanks to the work of citizen astronomers backed up with data from the Hubble telescope (which, researchers just found out, spotted a similar event in 1997) they now know the phenomenon exists and can put more time and energy into understanding it.

If this plume lasted 10 days surely our probes in orbit around Mars, & our space telescopes got a better look at it. So why don't Nasa & the ESA release the better images of it? Why do we have to rely on amateur astronomer's pictures of the phenomena?

I'll bet if you added heat & AC for our climate up here, because they suck up a lot of energy, that would dramatically effect the mileage. Fossil fuel cars utilize waste heat from the coolant/radiator fluid diverted to a heater core to heat the passenger area. I'm sure the electric motors generate some heat, but would it be able to be enough to divert to the passengers to keep them warm at 20F to below zero?

Some might be able to live without AC with a breeze blowing in the windows, but I don't think anybody will drive in a car long below 30F. Maybe they should install a small propane heater in these for cold climates.

The prototype was displayed today. I'm sure the final model will look a little different by the time it's for sale in 2017. As small as the car is, because there's little space taken up by the engine & transmission, it's surprisingly spacious inside... one of the few cars around that actually has some leg room for the rear passengers. It seems almost all rear seats have leg room designed for children or real tiny people these days. However, I wish car designers would go back to making seats without center consoles. If we need a cup, change, or odds & ends holder it can placed anywhere else or we can add it later, rather than it taking up seat & comfort space. That center space would be great for another passenger, a laptop, purse, or pack rather than placing them on a possibly dirty or damp floor.

A center console in the rear seats?  What's the point of that stupid idea? Apparently these car designers never got laid in a back seat or had to take a nap in their car.

In the west about a half hour after sunset, you’ll see Venus, but just below Venus you'll see much fainter Mercury. They'll be less than 2 degrees apart for the first half of the month.

Of course as usual, Orion will be visible all winter ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orion_%28constellation%29 )... a welcome sight because you can even see all of it in the bright light-polluted city at night. With binoculars you can see the nebula as a fuzzy star, but to make it out as a nebula you'll need something much more powerful. The bright orange star in the constellation is Betelgeuse ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betelgeuse ). It's red supergiant sun... one of the few supergiants observable with the naked eye. Burning away it's fuel at an alarming rate, it can blow up any second... or within the next million years. At 640 light years away, if it blew up today we wouldn't know about it for 640 years because that's how long it would take the light from it to get here. It's close enough that when it blows it will light up the whole sky, & you could easily see it in broad daylight.

There's a lot of controversy about any dangers from the x-rays & gamma ray it might cause. We're all doomed in less than 1/4 million years anyway as a star passes through our solar system's Ort cloud, causing all sort of asteroids & comets to rain down on us.

Mars is viewable as just as darkness falls throughout the month. It's really low in the southwestern twilight sky. Catch it right at nightfall because it sets real early in the evening throughout January.

Jupiter rises in the east around 8pm in early January and 6pm by the end of the month & remains in the night sky until dawn. It will be unmistakable, as it's brighter than any star in the sky. Only Venus will outshine it, but Venus will have set by the time Jupiter rises. As our orbit brings us close to Jupiter, it will be closest at February 6. A good time for best seeing it's largest moons even with simple binoculars, or the planet's details with a good telescope.

Saturn unfortunately rises just 3 hours before sunrise, so will only be visible for a few pre-dawn hours. The rings won't be visible with small binoculars unless you have good eyesight with a little eyestrain, you'll just barely make them out. The rings will just make it look oval rather than round. You'll need a good telescope to see them. It's largest moons may be just barely visible.

Below: Venus & Mercury, & Jupiter with it's largest moons through a large 10" diameter backyard telescope.