Behind every architect and builder is an artist who takes designs and ideas, morphing them into beautiful images for everyone to understand. Chesley Bonestell was this artist, yet very few know his name. He worked on the Golden Gate Bridge and the Chrysler Building, as a matte artist on famous movies like Citizen Kane, and his mesmerizing paintings of planets and star systems helped jumpstart America’s space program. His iconic “Saturn As Seen From Titan”, became known as “the painting that launched a thousand careers.” Discover the power of the forgotten man whose art inspired Americans to conquer “The Final Frontier”.
“Saturn As Seen From Titan” by Chesley Bonestell
Note that back in 2013 the AIAA Houston Section‘s Horizons Newsletter posted hi-res reproductions of the famous and influential series of articles on spaceflight by Wernher von Braun in Colliers Magazine in 1952-54, which included many illustrations by Bonestell. I wrote about this in these postings:
New images from the SPHERE instrument on ESO’s Very Large Telescope are revealing the dusty discs surrounding nearby young stars in greater detail than previously achieved. They show a bizarre variety of shapes, sizes and structures, including the likely effects of planets still in the process of forming. [Larger images]New images from the SPHERE instrument on ESO’s Very Large Telescope are revealing the dusty discs surrounding nearby young stars in greater detail than previously achieved. They show a bizarre variety of shapes, sizes and structures, including the likely effects of planets still in the process of forming.
The SPHERE instrument on ESO’s Very Large Telescope (VLT) in Chile allows astronomers to suppress the brilliant light of nearby stars in order to obtain a better view of the regions surrounding them. This collection of new SPHERE images is just a sample of the wide variety of dusty discs being found around young stars.
These discs are wildly different in size and shape — some contain bright rings, some dark rings, and some even resemble hamburgers. They also differ dramatically in appearance depending on their orientation in the sky — from circular face-on discs to narrow discs seen almost edge-on.
SPHERE’s primary task is to discover and study giant exoplanets orbiting nearby stars using direct imaging. But the instrument is also one of the best tools in existence to obtain images of the discs around young stars — regions where planets may be forming. Studying such discs is critical to investigating the link between disc properties and the formation and presence of planets.
This spectacular image from the SPHERE instrument on ESO’s Very Large Telescope shows the dusty disc around the young star IM Lupi in finer detail than ever before. [Larger versions]Many of the young stars shown here come from a new study of T Tauri stars, a class of stars that are very young (less than 10 million years old) and vary in brightness. The discs around these stars contain gas, dust, and planetesimals — the building blocks of planets and the progenitors of planetary systems.
These images also show what our own Solar System may have looked like in the early stages of its formation, more than four billion years ago.
Most of the images presented were obtained as part of the DARTTS-S (Discs ARound T Tauri Stars with SPHERE) survey. The distances of the targets ranged from 230 to 550 light-years away from Earth. For comparison, the Milky Way is roughly 100 000 light-years across, so these stars are, relatively speaking, very close to Earth. But even at this distance, it is very challenging to obtain good images of the faint reflected light from discs, since they are outshone by the dazzling light of their parent stars.
This SPHERE observation is the discovery of an edge-on disc around the star GSC 07396-00759, which is a member of a multiple star system included in the DARTTS-S sample. Oddly, this new disc appears to be more evolved than the gas-rich disc around the T Tauri star in the same system, although they are the same age. The disc extends from the lower-left to the upper-right and the central grey region shows where the star was masked out. [Larger images]Another new SPHERE observation is the discovery of an edge-on disc around the star GSC 07396-00759, found by the SHINE (SpHere INfrared survey for Exoplanets) survey. This red star is a member of a multiple star system also included in the DARTTS-S sample but, oddly, this new disc appears to be more evolved than the gas-rich disc around the T Tauri star in the same system, although they are the same age. This puzzling difference in the evolutionary timescales of discs around two stars of the same age is another reason why astronomers are keen to find out more about discs and their characteristics.
The new results from SPHERE, along with data from other telescopes such as ALMA, are revolutionising astronomers’ understanding of the environments around young stars and the complex mechanisms of planetary formation.
Yuri’s Night is the World Space Party. We hope to see you dream, explore, and celebrate with us at the hundreds of YN events held around the world each April.
“Circling the Earth in my orbital spaceship I marveled at the beauty of our planet. People of the world, let us safeguard and enhance this beauty — not destroy it!” — Yuri Gagarin, 1st human in space.
The National Space Society has teamed with Yuri’s Night!
The crew of Expedition 27 celebrates Yuri’s Night aboard the International Space Station in 2011
The National Space Society invites you to celebrate Yuri’s Night in your local area. Yuri’s Night is a global celebration of humanity’s past, present, and future in space. Yuri’s Night parties and events are held around the world every April in commemoration of Yuri Gagarin becoming the first human to venture into space on April 12, 1961, and the inaugural launch of the first Space Shuttle on April 12, 1981.
Yuri’s Night events combine space-themed partying with education and outreach. These events can range from an all-night mix of techno and technology at a NASA Center, to a movie showing and stargazing at your local college, to a gathering of friends at a bar or barbecue.
In 2011, the 50th anniversary of human spaceflight, over 100,000 people attended 567 officially-recognized events in 75 countries on all 7 continents, while tens of thousands more watched the 12-hour live Yuri’s Night Global Webcast and participated online in the virtual world of Second Life.
Yuri’s Night would like to thank the National Space Society for helping make Yuri’s Night in Los Angeles on April 7 the best event ever in the long history of Los Angeles Yuri’s Nights. The massive dance under the space shuttle Endeavour was truly awesome. (For details see www.la.yurisnight.net.)
This is just the beginning! On April 13 the Yuri’s Night celebration will rock the Space Coast in Florida with a dance under the Space Shuttle Atlantis. Help the National Space Society make this party one for the history books.
Here is a video tour of important sites on the Moon as seen in the imagery and sensor data collected by the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) since it reached the Moon in September of 2009: NASA — A Tour of our Moon
From the caption:
Take a virtual tour of the Moon in all-new 4K resolution, thanks to data provided by NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter spacecraft. As the visualization moves around the near side, far side, north and south poles, we highlight interesting features, sites, and information gathered on the lunar terrain.
1. Monday, April 9, 2018; 2-3:30 pm PDT (4-5:30 pm CDT, 5-6:30 pm EDT): We welcome back Dr. Geoffrey Landis of NASA for a variety of discussion topics.
3. Wednesday, April 11, 2018: Hotel Mars. See Upcoming Show Menu and the website newsletter for details. Hotel Mars is pre-recorded by John Batchelor. It is archived on The Space Show site after John posts it on his website.
4. Friday, April 13, 2018; 9:30 AM-11 am PDT, (12:30 -2 pm EDT; 11:30 am -1 pm CDT): We welcome Dr. Dirk Schulze-Makuch from Germany. Our guest is the author ofThe Cosmic Zoo, which we will be discussing.
5. Sunday, April 15, 2018: 12-1:30 pm PDT; 2-3:30 pm CDT; 3-4:30 pm EDT. We welcome back Dr. Alan Stern to update us on New Horizons and talk about his new book with Dr. David Grinspoon, Chasing New Horizons.
, which we will be discussing.
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