Category Archives: Space Arts

Exoplanets, Space Arts

Kepler exoplanet artwork invitation

The SETI Institute is sponsoring the Kepler Art of Discovery program:

Are you a space artist? An astronomer? Or a student interested in astronomy and our fascinating galaxy? You are cordially invited to create art that illustrates what the hundreds of newly discovered exoplanets (planets outside our solar system) might look like. Or your might create an image that captures other aspects of the Kepler Mission, such as how the spacecraft looks from the Earth as it orbits the Sun and captures the light emitted by these other stars.

Middle school students through adults are invited to submit images of these other Keplerworlds. Art of Discovery aims to bring people’s creative ideas to this question: What do the exoplanets look like that the Kepler Mission has discovered? And what other subjects has the Kepler Mission inspired artistically? For information about the Kepler Mission, see the Kepler website.

All submitted images of artwork will be acknowledged, and The Top 100 will be displayed in the Gallery of the Art of Discovery website. These will be selected by a combination of the number of popular votes AND scores from a distinguished panel of judges.

See Rules at Kepler Art of Discovery for details on submitting your rendition of an exoplanet. Registration period: March 10–May 5, 2014

kepler-9b[1]

Multiple media, Space Arts

Videos: Space artists Mary Edna Fraser and Pat Rawlings

MyMoon is an outreach program of the Lunar and Planetary Institute (LPI) and I see that they have a lot of interesting videos in the MyMoonLPI YouTube channel. Here, for example, are interviews with noted space artists Mary Edna Fraser and Pat Rawlings:

Space Arts, Space Systems

Nano-sats take art to space

Planet Labs is building a constellation of over 100 low cost earth observation satellites. They will have artworks engraved on them by their in-house artists who can work for 2-3 months at the company: These Mini Satellites Have An Unexpected Addition: Beautiful Art – Co.Exist.

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General, Multiple media, Space Arts

uncube magazine – the space issue

The latest issue of the publication uncube magazine, which is devoted to “architecture, design, products, materials”, is devoted to the space: magazine no. 19 – uncube. It includes several interesting articles and lots and lots of beautiful images, diagrams, and artwork.

A message about the issue described it as follows:

In our new issue, we delve into mars colonization and off-world architecture, cybernetics, the space elevator, space art, and all things galactic. We also look at life on the ISS, our historical fascinations with the Moon, and some never before seen original drawings by Galina Balashova, the only woman to have ever designed three generations of Soviet spaceships. Not to mention, our awesome animated space gifs, sound, and video. (We are a digital magazine with a very special format with a responsive design that allows for neat little surprises.) Thanks for reading and sharing our enthusiasm for space!

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Final Mission by Michael Najjor
Najjor is interviewed about his artwork and his
plan to fly on the Virgin Galactic SpaceShipTwo.

Space Arts, Space films and videos, Spaceflight & Parabolic Flight

“Gravity” grabs seven Oscars

Congratulations to the makers of and the actors in Gravity for the seven Oscars they won tonight, including Best Director for Alfonso Cuarón. Quite remarkable for a space drama with a near-term, (fairly) hard science, realistic approach to captivate audiences in huge numbers and to achieve so much critical acclaim.

I wish the scenario was less catastrophic but, as NASA Astronaut Mike Massimino indicates, the movie still manages to depict the amazing beauty and wonder of spaceflight in earth orbit: