Tagged: earth

The names of all bodies in the Solar System larger than 100 kilometres, with font sizes relative to their radius, based on the realistic colors of the objects against the black background of space

8. November 2015

87 Members of the Solar Family

A while ago I made a family portrait of the solar system. Or rather a portrait of the leading members of the family, the eight planets: Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, Earth, Venus, Mars and Mercury. Moons, asteroids and dwarf planets But there’s more happening around the Sun. Moons for instance; our own Moon, of course, but also a large number of satellites of the four gas giants. There is an asteroid belt between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter where, besides a lot of little ones, also bigger objects are turning their rounds. But many asteroids can be found outside… Read More

Group portrait of the eight planets of our solar system, shown to scale: Earth, Venus, Mars and Mercury in their entirety and parts of Jupiter, Saturn, Neptune and Uranus

Space art / Visualisation

28. September 2015

Portrait of the Planets

When you want to capture the whole Solar System in one image, you come across a problem. The distances between the eight planets and their star are huge, almost unimaginable. In all the pictures of the solar system you’ve ever seen the sizes of the planets are wrong: they are strongly exaggerated, by necessity. On a scale model of about two metres – a nice size to hang on the wall in your living room – the Earth would be only four thousandths of a millimeter. You wouldn’t even be able to see our homeworld! Heaven on Earth The only… Read More

Impression of The Sulawesi Space Elevator, with a rotating space station and solar panels in the foreground, the Earth in the background and the cable with elevator cars in between.

Space art / Visualisation

11. September 2015

The Space Elevator: It Ain’t Cheap, But…

An elevator into space: it sounds like science fiction. And that’s what it is: authors such as Arthur C. Clarke, Robert Heinlein and Kim Stanley Robinson wrote heavy books about it. But what’s science fiction today, is in the newspaper paper tomorrow and in the history books on the day after. And Arthur C. Clarke has been right more often; after all, he also conceived the communications satellite. An appealing concept In recent years, organizations such as NASA, but also companies like Google, started exploring the possibilities of the space elevator. And the concept certainly has some appeal. The traditional way to get… Read More

Impression of solar sail Johannes Kepler on its way to the moons of Jupiter against a background of stars with the Earth on the left and the moon in the distance

Space art / Visualisation

16. August 2015

Sailing on the Solar Wind

Probably not everyone realizes that there is also wind outside the Earth’s atmosphere. And that you can also sail in space. Sailing on a different kind of wind, that is: solar wind. The particles that make up sunlight exert force on the objects that are illuminated by them. Johannes Kepler was, in the 16th century, the first to realize the possibilities of a solar sail. He came to that insight while studying a comet. The tail of a comet is caused by the solar wind blowing its particles into space. Sustainable spaceflight The power of the solar wind is small… Read More

Conjunction of the planets Venus and Jupiter above lake Kralingse Plas in Rotterdam with the city's skyline in the background

Photography

3. July 2015

Rotterdam and the planets

I wouldn’t call myself an astrophotographer. I don’t have the equipment for it and after all, you can’t specialize in everything. Moreover, the Rotterdam city center, where I live, is not the best place to photograph celestial phenomena. Too put it mildly. Not only myself and my 600,000 fellow Rotterdammers produce a sea of light, industry and greenhouse horticulture also contribute to that light pollution. When you think you see stars in downtown Rotterdam, they are usually planets. Although those are much smaller than stars, they are also much closer and are therefore a lot brighter. A conjunction of two… Read More

Kerstkaart met schilderachtig beeld van een kerkje in het winterlandschap in nationaal park Thingvellir in IJsland

Design / Digital art / Space art

15. December 2014

Merry Christmars

For decades, I’ ve been putting a great deal of work into my Christmas cards. And sometimes into those of others. This year I made one by commission of Explore Mars, a (mostly) American non-profit organization that promotes Manned Mars exploration: The design and the text “Two Down, Mars and the Universe to go” is a reference to Neil Armstrong’s “giant leap for mankind” and the recent landing of the European spacecraft Philae on the comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko. Mars comes into view as the next big step. And after that there are a few hundred billion stars and their planets to… Read More

Stereo image of a walled city garden, with a pond, grass and a little terrace; a red and cyan pair of 3d glasses is needed to see the effect

Visualisation

9. January 2014

Anaglyph: Stereo Effect in Red and Cyan

An anaglyph is a method of viewing a three-dimensional effect on a flat medium: a photo or a screen. There are several techniques to achieve that stereo effect. Motion pictures nowadays often work with polarized light. Chances are you’ve seen Harry Potter, Avatar or Dune that way. Red and Cyan The anaglyph method is much older. Movies were made using this technique as early as the 1950s. In an anaglyph, two images are superimposed; the image for the left eye in red, the image for the right eye in cyan. So, just like with those cinema films, you always need… Read More