Science Art

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The Phoenix landed on May 25, 2008, and promptly took a picture of its own leg. It’s a tradition.

Credit: NASA, JPL-Caltech, University of Arizona

Stolen shamelessly from Wikipedia’s “Fourth Dimension” article, where it illustrates a four-dimensional object rotating on one axis. The graphic was orginally… Read the rest “Science Art: Rotating Tesseract.”

There it is – the key that unlocked ancient Egypt. One message in three alphabets.

From the Library of Christian Theological Seminary, found on Wikimedia Commons.

The Death’s Head Hawkmoth.

There’s a more recent photograph of one here; the first time I remember learning this beauty’s name was in a brilliantly illustrated version… Read the rest “Science Art: “Acherontia atropos,” Nordisk familjebok”

Sixteen Black Dot Tentacles by Ernst Haeckel.

This may look like an abstract or a mathematical exercise; it’s not. It’s an illustration of a microscopic life form. I think … Read the rest “Science Art: Sixteen Black Dot Tentacles by Ernst Haeckel”

Astronomical charts from Gujin Tushu Jicheng, a Qing dynasty Chinese encyclopedia.

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A dicey bit of racial taxonomy from The New Students Reference Work (1914), edited by Chandler B. Beach, associate editor Frank Morton McMurry.

I’m not sure how … Read the rest “Science Art: “Asian Types,” The New Students Reference Work (1914)”

Diagram from Wikimedia Commons.

It’s like op art.

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Photo by NASA, ESA, and The Hubble Heritage Team (STScI/AURA).

You can read more about V838 Monocerotis exploding and swallowing nearby planets here.

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This is an image from an old Norwegian encyclopedia, the “Norwegian Familybook” published sometime from 1904 to 1926.

In Norwegian, the animals illustrated… Read the rest “Science Art: “Australisk fauna,” Nordisk Familjebok Encyclopedia”

A microscopic image of liquid crystal by Wikimedia Commons user "Minutemen."

Happy Easter.

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This is a visible-light image of M-104, the Sombrero Galaxy, taken by the Hubble Space Telescope.

If our eyes were sharp enough, we could see this ourselves just by … Read the rest “Science Art: The Magnificent Sombrero Galaxy”

The Guardian is featuring an incredible slideshow of the Wellcome Image Awards 2008.

Go, look, be awed.

A leaf, with something on it, as seen at nearly 2,000 times normal size through a scanning electron microscope (SEM).

There are more SEM images here, at the Cosmic Light galleries.