Science Art | The Guild of Scientific Troubadours

Scientific Illustration of NASA's Skylab

Science Art: Skylab Artist Concept, 1972

19 May 2019 grant 0

Click to embiggen A house in space, with a big carport. Spaceport. You get the idea. From NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center: This illustration Skylab […]

Scientific illustration of desmids (algae)

Science Art: Plate XIV (Cosmarium species from Desmids of the United States….

12 May 2019 grant 0

Single-celled algae, magnified 500 times. They float in ponds and stream banks. I found them in the Biodiversity Heritage Library, in the Rev. Francis Wolle’s […]

Scientific illustration of Rufus Porter's airship, dubbed the "aeroport"

Science Art: Rufus Porter’s “Travelling Balloon,” later renamed the “aeroport,” from Mechanics magazine, Nov. 8, 1834

6 May 2019 grant 0

This airship is a kind of ancestor of the blimp or dirigible, designed by 19th-century American artist and inventor Rufus Porter, who’s perhaps best remembered […]

Scientific Illustration of a Single-Piezo-Actuator Rotary-Hammering Drill patent from NASA, used for gathering core samples from alien planets.

Science Art: Perspective Cutaway View of a Rotary Hammering Sample Acquisition Section (Fig. 5) from NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS) 20150003208

28 April 2019 grant 0

Click to embiggen A way NASA plans to get core samples from Mars, the Jovian moon Europa, and beyond – a drill designed to cut […]

scientific illustration of a dinosaur eating a bird

Science Art: Sinocalliopteryx gigas as a stealth hunter feeding on the primitive bird Confuciusornis, by Cheung Chungtat

21 April 2019 grant 0

Click to embiggen An Easter Sunday lunch is served: an early bird! This is the Chinese feathered dinosaur Sinocalliopteryx gigas, chomping the bird Confuciusornis – […]

Scientific illustration of M87 black hole taken by Chandra X-ray Observatory

Science Art: Chandra X-ray Observatory close-up of the core of the M87 galaxy, by NASA/CXC/Villanova University/J. Neilsen

14 April 2019 grant 0

Click to embiggen This is not the famous Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) black hole image that you’ve probably seen by now. It’s a visualization of […]

Scientific illustration of a watch escapement

Science Art: Verge Watch Escapement, from The Cyclopaedia, or Universal Dictionary, Vol. 2, 1820.

7 April 2019 grant 0

A horological device called a “verge escapement” (on the bottom) with a balance wheel (on the top) from a pocketwatch. An “escapement” is the thing […]

Science Art: Plate LIL, Fig 3: Cepheus bifidatus Nymph, from British Oribatidae, 1884

31 March 2019 grant 0

Click to embiggen Mm. Mighty mite. From a this book of mites. Luckily for us, these mites (the Oribatidae) aren’t parasitic. They live in dirt […]

Ichneumon Fly, a scientific illustration

Science Art: Ichneumon Fly, from the USDA’s Bureau of Entomology and Plant Quarantine, 1941

24 March 2019 grant 0

Click to embiggen “Lays eggs on larva boring in wood.” Add just one comma and that comes across as harsh criticism, but it’s really meant […]

Science Art: Hypocaustum excavated behind the old city of Rottenburg am Neckar , by Eduard von Kallee.

17 March 2019 grant 0

Click to embiggen An ancient Roman central heating system – hot water would be flooded through the basement, and the floors would warm up. “Hypocaust” […]

Science Art: Four views of the Alvan Clark & Sons workshop…, from Scientific American, Sep. 24, 1887

10 March 2019 grant 0

Here, an astronomical family is building a 36-inch refractor telescope known as the Great Lick Refractor in the 1880s. It’s named for James Lick, an […]