Space Arts

Video: Exhibition “outer space” by artist Michael Najjar opens in NYC

I’ve posted a couple of times about photographer Michael Najjar’s space inspired works (see here and here). He has a new show opening in New York City this month:

Here are a couple of his photos plus a video that he made:

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Here is the press release for the show:

Michael Najjar – outer space – March 31 – May 14, 2016

Benrubi Gallery is pleased to announce German photo and video artist Michael Najjar‘s solo exhibition, outer space – the artist’s first show with the gallery and the first major showing of this series in New York City. outer space explores the latest development in space travel and how it is shaping future life on earth and in near-earth orbit. Informed by Najjar’s training to become the first civilian artist to fly to space, the series of large-scale photographs capture an intense and immersive futuristic world, inspired by cutting-edge aeronautic technologies and the nascent space tourism industry. The potential of the photographic image is pushed to new frontiers as realistic elements fuse with fictitious realities to make visible what is invisible or beyond human perception.

Central to outer space is Najjar’s personal experience with space flight and the performative aspect of the exhibited images. As one of the pioneer astronauts of Richard Branson’s Virgin Galactic, Najjar has been undergoing an intensive, multistage cosmonaut training in Star City, Russia, since 2012, and is scheduled to board SpaceShipTwo in the near future. The artist uses the actual experience of training (zero-g flight, centrifuge training, stratosphere flight, and underwater space walks, to name a few) to create complex and never-before carried out photos that examine vital connections between humans and technology. Reality and simulation are so intertwined that they become indistinguishable, allowing for novel ways of seeing. Video artworks based on Najjar’s extreme training will be shown as part of the exhibition.

The acceleration in aeronautic research and industry and the birth of commercial space travel has brought humanity on the verge of a new era. The images of outer space – the ultra-high resolution telescope “golden eye II,” the world’s largest centrifuge, the first private spaceport, mineral mining on the moon, or space debris orbiting around the earth at fast speed – all address these technological advancements, attempting to elucidate their important cultural implication through artistic transformation. “By leaving our home planet and flying to the moon or other planets, we change our understanding of who we are and where we come from,” Najjar says. “The point is to reflect on our world and what it means to us and the generations to come after us. It’s about the very origins of the self.”

Europa, Titan, & other deep space sites, Gas giants Saturn, Jupiter, et al, Space Science

Video: Artist Michael Carroll – “On the shores of Titan’s Farthest Sea”

In this SETI Institute seminar,  author/artist Michael Carroll explores

the bizarre methane-filled seas and soaring dunes of Saturn’s largest moon, Titan. Recent advances in our understanding of this planet-sized moon provide enough information for authors to paint a realistic picture of this truly alien world.

Living in Space, Space Systems, SpaceCasts

Video: ‘Space to Ground” – ISS report for Mar.25.16

This week’s episode of NASA’s Space to Ground report on activities related to the Int. Space Station:

Pluto and beyond, Space Science, Space Systems

New Horizons: Frozen nitrogen lake spotted on the surface of Pluto

A New Horizons image shows an interesting feature:

Pluto: On Frozen Pond

NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft spied several features on Pluto that offer evidence of a time millions or billions of years ago when – thanks to much higher pressure in Pluto’s atmosphere and warmer conditions on the surface – liquids might have flowed across and pooled on the surface of the distant world.

Pond[1]
Image credit: NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Southwest Research Institute
“In addition to this possible former lake, we also see evidence of channels that may also have carried liquids in Pluto’s past,” said Alan Stern, Southwest Research Institute, Boulder, Colorado—principal investigator of New Horizons and lead author of a scientific paper on the topic submitted to the journal Icarus.

This feature appears to be a frozen, former lake of liquid nitrogen, located in a mountain range just north of Pluto’s informally named Sputnik Planum. Captured by the New Horizons’ Long Range Reconnaissance Imager (LORRI) as the spacecraft flew past Pluto on July 14, 2015, the image shows details as small as about 430 feet (130 meters). At its widest point the possible lake appears to be about 20 miles (30 kilometers) across.

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See also a recent presentation of New Horizons results so far: New Horizons Team Presents Latest Pluto Science Results at Planetary Conference.

Astronomy

ESO: Exploring the wilds of the Local Group (of galaxies)

The latest report from the European Southern Observatory (ESO)

The Wilds of the Local Group

This image, captured by ESO’s OmegaCAM on the VLT Survey Telescope, shows a lonely galaxy known as Wolf-Lundmark-Melotte, or WLM for short. Although considered part of our Local Group of dozens of galaxies, WLM stands alone at the group’s outer edges as one of its most remote members. In fact, the galaxy is so small and secluded that it may never have interacted with any other Local Group galaxy — or perhaps even any other galaxy in the history of the Universe.
This image, captured by ESO’s OmegaCAM on the VLT Survey Telescope, shows a lonely galaxy known as Wolf-Lundmark-Melotte, or WLM for short. Although considered part of our Local Group of dozens of galaxies, WLM stands alone at the group’s outer edges as one of its most remote members. In fact, the galaxy is so small and secluded that it may never have interacted with any other Local Group galaxy — or perhaps even any other galaxy in the history of the Universe.

This scene, captured by ESO’s OmegaCAM on the VLT Survey Telescope, shows a lonely galaxy known as Wolf-Lundmark-Melotte, or WLM for short. Although considered part of our Local Group of dozens of galaxies, WLM stands alone at the group’s outer edges as one of its most remote members. In fact, the galaxy is so small and secluded that it may never have interacted with any other Local Group galaxy — or perhaps even any other galaxy in the history of the Universe.

Rather like an uncontacted tribe living deep in the Amazon rainforest or on an island in Oceania, WLM offers a rare insight into the primordial nature of galaxies that have been little disturbed by their environment.

This sequence starts with a broad view of the rather faint constellation of Cetus (The Sea Monster). As we zoom, we close in on a faint galaxy, known as WLM. The final detailed image, captured with the OmegaCAM camera on ESO’s VLT Survey Telescope in Chile, shows the galaxy in great detail, including many of its component stars and some glowing clouds of hydrogen. Credit: ESO/A. Fujii/Digitized Sky Survey 2. Music: Johan B. Monell (www.johanmonell.com). Acknowledgement: VST/Omegacam Local Group Survey

WLM was discovered in 1909 by German astronomer Max Wolf, and identified as a galaxy some fifteen years later by astronomers Knut Lundmark and Philibert Jacques Melotte — explaining the galaxy’s unusual moniker. The dim galaxy is located in the constellation of Cetus (The Sea Monster) about three million light-years away from the Milky Way, which is one of the three dominant spiral galaxies in the Local Group.

This chart shows the position of the faint, galaxy WLM in the constellation of Cetus (The Sea Monster). Most of the stars visible to the naked eye on a clear and dark night are shown. The galaxy itself has a very low surface brightness, it was discoved photographically in the early twentieth century and is very hard to spot visually.
This chart shows the position of the faint, galaxy WLM in the constellation of Cetus (The Sea Monster). Most of the stars visible to the naked eye on a clear and dark night are shown. The galaxy itself has a very low surface brightness, it was discoved photographically in the early twentieth century and is very hard to spot visually.

WLM is quite small and lacks structure, hence its classification as a dwarf irregular galaxy. WLM spans about 8000 light-years at its greatest extent, a measurement that includes a halo of extremely old stars discovered in 1996 (eso9633).

Astronomers think that comparatively small primeval galaxies gravitationally interacted with each other and in many cases merged, building up into larger composite galaxies. Over billions of years, this merging process assembled the large spiral and elliptical galaxies that now appear to be common in the modern Universe. Galaxies congregating in this manner is similar to the way in which human populations have shifted over thousands of years and intermixed into larger settlements, eventually giving rise to today’s megacities.

This wide-field view shows the sky around the dwarf galaxy WLM in the constellation of Cetus (The Sea Monster). This picture was created from images forming part of the Digitized Sky Survey 2. The galaxy appears at the centre of the picture as an irregularly shaped clump of faint stars.
This wide-field view shows the sky around the dwarf galaxy WLM in the constellation of Cetus (The Sea Monster). This picture was created from images forming part of the Digitized Sky Survey 2. The galaxy appears at the centre of the picture as an irregularly shaped clump of faint stars.

WLM has instead developed on its own, away from the influence of other galaxies and their stellar populations. Accordingly, like a hidden human population with limited contact with outsiders, WLM represents a relatively unperturbed “state of nature”, where any changes occurring over its lifetime have taken place largely independent of activity elsewhere.

This small galaxy features an extended halo of very dim red stars, which stretches out into the inky blackness of the surrounding space. This reddish hue is indicative of advanced stellar age. It is likely that the halo dates back to the original formation of the galaxy itself, helpfully offering clues about the mechanisms that spawned the very first galaxies.

This close-up video pan sequence, captured by ESO’s OmegaCAM on the VLT Survey Telescope, shows a lonely galaxy known as Wolf-Lundmark-Melotte, or WLM for short. Although considered part of our Local Group of dozens of galaxies, WLM stands alone at the group’s outer edges as one of its most remote members. In fact, the galaxy is so small and secluded that it may never have interacted with any other Local Group galaxy — or perhaps even any other galaxy in the history of the Universe. Credit: ESO. Music: Johan B. Monell (www.johanmonell.com). Acknowledgement: VST/Omegacam Local Group Survey

The stars at the centre of WLM, meanwhile, appear younger and bluer in colour. In this image, pinkish clouds highlight areas where the intense light from young stars has ionised ambient hydrogen gas, making it glow in a characteristic shade of red.

This detailed image was captured by the OmegaCAM wide-field imager, a huge camera mounted on ESO’s VLT Survey Telescope (VST) in Chile — a 2.6-metre telescope exclusively designed to survey the night sky in visible light. OmegaCAM’s 32 CCD detectors create 256-megapixel images, offering a very detailed wide-field view of the cosmos.

Everyone can participate in space