Creation of art via the science of Astronomy

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, Astronomy is the science of celestial objects (such as stars, planets, comets, and galaxies) and phenomena that originate outside the Earth's atmosphere. It is concerned with the evolution, physics, chemistry, meteorology, and motion of celestial objects, as well as formation of the universe and its development. The word astronomy literally means "law of the stars". An outstanding contribution to the creation of Art from the Science of Astronomy is based on looking at space through the Hubble Space Telescope that was named after astronomer Edwin Hubble (1889 -1953). An appropriate definition of Art in this case is: “Art is the way of discovering mankind’s creativity which serves among others for aesthetic purposes … ”. The telescope was launched in 1990 for the purpose of taking significantly better pictures of the universe than can be taken from within the Earth’s atmosphere. The telescope, which produces around 10 gigabytes of information each day, has provided some of the most insightful and astonishing images of the universe that have ever been seen.

Fig.14 is an artwork exhibition of galaxies photographed by Hubble’s telescope and found in the Hubble Image Gallery http://heritage.stsci.edu/gallery/gallery.html. A galaxy, which is the basic construction unit of our universe, is a large collection of stars, about 100 billion, gas and dust held together by mutual gravitation. Our Sun is a member of the Milky Way Galaxy. There are billions of galaxies in the observable universe. All galaxies formed at about the same time approximately 13 billion years ago. There are many models for the formation of galaxies. The classical model on the origin of the galaxies says that they formed from huge gas clouds larger than the resulting galaxy. The clouds began collapsing because their internal gravity was strong enough to overcome the pressure in the cloud. If the gas cloud was slowly rotating, then the collapsing gas cloud formed most of its stars before the cloud could flatten into a disk. The result was an elliptical galaxy. If the gas cloud was rotating faster, then the collapsing gas cloud formed a disk before most of the stars were made. The result was a spiral galaxy. The rate of star formation may be the determining factor in what type of galaxy will form. But, perhaps the situation is reversed: the type of galaxy determines the rate of star formation. Which is the ``cause'' and which is the ``effect''? As of now, it is not known and is the subject of astronomy research.

Fig.14. The Hubble Image Artwork Gallery of Galaxies

In the following Figures a demonstration is presented of part of the above kind of galaxies in an enlarged form where in Fig.15 are demonstrated spiral galaxies.

Galaxy 100 painted by Lillian Schwartz

Colliding Galaxies NGC 2207 and IC 2163

Fig.15. Spiral Galaxies


Additional kind of Galaxies is presented in Fig.16. They have a chaotic random appearance and do not fit into the scheme of spirals, nor elliptical and are referred to as Irregular Galaxies. The author considers them as fascinating artworks demonstrating space sciences.

NGC 4490

Sextans A

Fig.16. Photograph of Irregular Galaxies

Additional celestial body is the Nebula. It is a large cloud of gas and dust in space that is the beginning of a star outer planets like the five planets farthest from the Sun - Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune and Pluto. A few Nebulae selected from the Internet to present fascinating artworks are presented in Figs.17.

Eagle Nebula

Crab Nebula

Cygnus Nebula photo by Doughlas Finkbeiner

Fig.17. Photographs of Nebulae

So far we have looked at general views in space, namely, galaxies consisting of billions of stars. In the following we concentrate on specific planets in the solar system and their demonstration by art. By planets is meant an object orbiting the Sun and visible by reflected sunlight. Fig.18 is an artwork entitled ”Family portrait of the sun and planets” painted by Ron Miller (1947), an American illustrator/author specializing in science and astronomy.

Fig.18. The solar system

The most attractive planet in the solar system is Saturn because of its rings creating a fascinating artwork demonstrated in Fig.19. Galileo discovered the rings in 1610, during the first telescopic observations of the night sky. The rings are made of million pieces of ice of size of a few millimeters to tens of meters. The pieces of ice reflect Sun’s light creating the colors of the rings.

Fig.19. Saturn rings

Fig.19 (left) is a false color artistic image that shows the ring structure. Each color represents a different type of composition in the ring particles. The right-hand-side is a picture by taken by Voyager 2 on 1981 from a distance of 2.1 million miles. Jupiter is another attractive planet that is demonstrated by art in Fig.20. The English science fiction and fantasy illustrator Andrew C. Stewart painted it as well as Fig.21 entitled “The Future of Mars”. This artwork is an illusive one and according to Stewart, Mars might change if its surface were warmed by human effort transforming Mars into a mini earth.

Fig.20. Jupiter system

Fig.21. Mars

Although the sun is not as attractive artistically as the aforementioned planets, it was the subjects of many artists such as De Es Schwertberger (1942), an Austrian Myth and mystery artist, who painted the artwork in Fig.22 and Vincent van Gogh (1853-1890), a Dutch Expressionist who painted the artwork in Fig.23.

Fig.22. “Creator’s Dance”

Fig.23. “Pollard Willows and Setting Sun”

An unknown artist presents a very interesting artwork, the birth of sun, in Fig.24.

Fig.24. The birth of sun

The following artworks demonstrate the moon. Fig.25. was painted by Rockwell Kent (1882-1971), an American painter and printmaker. Fig.26 is a glass sculpture constructed by Dale Chihuly (1941), an American glass sculptor