Located high in the mountains of the Atacama Desert of northern Chile (one of the most arid regions in the world), the Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory is an array of telescopes and scientific instruments that was founded in 1963 by Chileans and Americans.

Most recently, a phone box-sized Dark Energy Camera (or DECam) has been mounted on the 4m Victor M. Blanco telescope. The purpose of the 570-million-pixel camera is to scan some 300 million galaxies in the coming five years for evidence of dark energy.

The camera is comprised of 62 separate CCDs, the same kind of detector in consumer cameras. By doing some fancy stuff with a computer model and measuring red-shifting of an expanding galaxy paired with echoes of the Big Bang, the DECam should help to isolate and quantify dark energy. Simple as that...

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Laguna Seca Raceway (Spanish for "dry lake") is a California raceway opened in 1957 in the bed of a dry lake. The current track is 2.238 miles long and has 11 turns. The racetrack features a multitude of racing exhibitions.

The course (or interpretations of it) is featured in several racing video games: the Gran Turismo series (including the bike version Tourist Trophy), Forza Motorsport, and the MotoGP series.

George Lucas used to race here before he got into a car accident and gave up racing for filmmaking.

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After getting in a car accident in high school, a young George Lucas decided to give up his dream of race car driving and further his education.

He began his post-secondary education at Modesto Junior College (the oldest community college district in California) where he earned an Associate of Arts degree before transferring to the University of South California film school.

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At the Five Points intersection in Modesto, CA (McHenry, Downey, Needham, 17th and "J"), the town paid tribute to their favorite son by dedicating a statue to American Graffiti and naming the intersection George Lucas Plaza.

Although it was shot in Petaluma, Lucas was raised in Modesto and based much of the California cruising culture in American Graffiti on his experiences there. When Lucas was a lad, this intersection marked the end of downtown and the beginning of the farmland that surrounded the city.

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George "Jar Jar" Lucas went to middle school at Roosevelt Junior High School, home of the Rough Riders.

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