Cosmic Beauty -- Astronomy Pictures are Beautiful, But Do They Reflect Reality?

I'm very excited right now because Space.com recently published one of my articles; you can read it here. The general idea is that, perhaps unbeknownst to lots of people, astronomy pictures -- like the beautiful images taken by the Hubble Space Telescope -- are usually manipulated by astronomers. And there are continuing debates about how far those manipulations should go. For instance, the color blue is astronomy images signifies the hottest of heat, while red signifies a cooler temperature. But in our everyday lives, the meanings of the colors are reversed. Should those common understandings prevail in astronomy? It's hard to say. I'll leave it to you to make up your own mind.

My New Discover Photo Gallery

Hurray!  The online photo gallery I had been creating for Discover magazine is now complete.  You can see it here.

An Orrery Featuring Kepler's Exoplanets

Here is an amazing visualization of the exoplanets discovered by the Kepler space telescope:



There's something mesmerizing and powerful about this simulation.  Actually, there's something powerful about visualizations in general.  Think about Spongelab, a company that creates science visualizations to help students learn.  The merging of artistic, or visual, elements with abstract thinking can help people understand so many things.

NASA and Art

Did anyone else know that NASA had an art program? I sure didn't. And today, I learned that art from NASA's collection is being exhibited at the National Air and Space Museum in Washington, D.C. The artists featured in the show include Andy Warhol, Annie Leibovitz, and Norman Rockwell. Fascinating. You can learn more about the relationship between NASA and art here.

Image

Title: "Mission to Mars"
Oil on masonite painting by Ren Wicks. Wicks’ painting depicts Martian explorers conducting scientific observations, recording wind speed with an anemometer and planetary features with a hand-held camera. A dust storm is approaching the crater area near the landing site, but views of the moons Phobus and Deimos are available in the twilight sky. A Mars excursion vehicle in the background serves as crew quarters for the mission.

35th Anniversary of Viking 1

Andrew Tarantola wrote a beautiful piece on Gizmodo about the landing of Viking 1. There must be few thrills as
exciting as being a NASA engineer and seeing the first photos taken by a craft you designed, now perched on a distant world.

You can find more information about the Viking mission here.

Photo courtesy of NASA

Earth Observatory

While perusing Refdesk (one of my favorite websites), I happened across Earth Observatory, and especially loved its image of the day site. Browsers can look at satellite images of all sorts of geographical features, and can even sort the offerings by categories like "heat," "atmosphere," and "life." Well done, NASA.

The Puffin

A few days ago, I read about a flying machine, developed by NASA engineers, that is made for one person. It is called the "Puffin," and is powered by electricity. Read more about it here.