Feature image: Artist's impression illustrates how high-speed jets from a supermassive black hole would look. Credit: ESA/Hubble, L. Calçada (ESO)
The Art of the Universe: How Artists Render Our Galaxy’s Mysteries
We can observe the universe and life as we know it in more ways than we can comprehend. Satellite imagery allows us to see aspects of the planet we never thought we could perceive with the naked eye. Emerging space telescope technology is changing how we see our universe every day—and most of these resources are in the public domain.
However, no matter how powerful our telescopes are, we likely will never actually see a photographic image of our galaxy in full. In order to do so, we’d have to possess image-capturing technology that can reach beyond our galaxy—to date, we’ve barely reached some planets in our solar system. Even though we can gather important data and take pictures of the universe around us, artists play a key role in disseminating scientific evidence to the general public, from the illustrated renditions of our galaxy to the engineering feats that make enormous calculations possible. Artists’ work helps us fill in the blanks for outer space unknowns, visualizing for us what otherwise would be a mere figment of our imagination as we daydream of the stardust we emerged from billions of years ago.
The Artists behind the Astral Plane
How do we know what the galaxy looks like? This information comes from researchers’ findings and interpretations of data from satellites and telescopes. However, the way we literally see the results of these scientific efforts is thanks to artist-scientists like Dr. William Kenneth Hartman. He is responsible for many renderings of our known universe, from the positions of the solar systems to how Earth became habitable! His work helped lead the paradigm shift in understanding Earth’s tilt and the moon's origins. Scientists and artists like him prove that the arts and sciences are still very much intertwined at the astrophysical level.
Artist renditions of research don’t focus just on what’s naturally in space, either. Those side-profile pictures of satellites orbiting the Earth are artist renditions, too. Artists here help depict artistic visualizations of astrophysical data but are also needed for visualizations of the satellites themselves. Artist renderings of multiple perspectives of satellites help keep proportions accurate in their space art and keep up with engineers' repair work.
This vital role of public dissemination is so important that it warranted the formation of the International Association of Astronomical Artists. This organization now has over 200 members and is dedicated to visualizing how the universe looks today, what it looked like in the past, and what it might look like in the future.
How is it made, and how accurate is it to real life?
This art form reminds us of the beauty of the scientific method. These images show us new boundary-breaking discoveries of our galaxy. It is work created by the power of data and the human mind—the kind of art that must be scientifically accurate at the astrophysical level. Most data from space comes from the James Webb telescope, whose capabilities are far beyond what we’ve ever had. It can take pictures of distant parts of the galaxy. However, it can also give us readings on the positions of different planets in our galaxy. Combined with other images gathered throughout the years, this data can show us how these celestial bodies are moving about space and how to visualize them.
Think of it like those math problems from high school and college calculus and physics classes where you had to calculate the velocity and trajectory of a particle. The same principles can be applied to figure out how things look in space—but it requires much more math and physics experience than your average AP class. No matter how complex the equations, artists create space for people from all backgrounds to marvel at our universe in ways we never thought possible. For example, centuries of researching celestial patterns around the Earth helped scientists theorize, calculate, and conclude findings on the Milky Way Galaxy’s elliptical and spiraling patterns. A picture is truly worth a thousand words—images can help transform hard-to-understand data into an impactful, easily digestible story of the universe.
Artist or Artificial - How to tell the difference
These artworks highlight the sheer attention to detail these artist-scientists must possess to depict the world around us in its most accurate light. Sometimes, they are so detailed that their work can be mistaken for a satellite image. For example, USAToday released a fact check in 2021 urging people to stop claiming that an artist's rendition of Saturn’s rings was a satellite image of the “closest ever taken of Saturn.” The image was claimed to be attributable to the Cassini spacecraft, which yielded 400,000 images of space from over 13 years of operation. NASA posted images of the artist’s rendition, but many people continued sharing them as if they came from a satellite. This mistake is one that is easy to make—how can you spot an artist's rendition from a satellite image?
1. Consider the perspective of the image. Are you looking at an image of a galaxy? Does the picture look like a satellite was positioned at the centermost point of the galaxy? If so, it is probably a rendition, as an image from a position like that would be much farther away than we can achieve.
2. Consider the position of the image. Can you see pieces of the satellite in the image? What parts can you see? Sometimes, pieces of a spacecraft may be visible in an image. However, this is not always the case and could be the marker of an artist's rendition.
3. Look for potential nefarious markers. Does the image look incredibly polished or contain patterns that don’t look physically possible? Do the colors look cleanly blended and contain mismatched or broken lines? These could be AI-generated images being passed as satellite images.
4. When in doubt, check it out. Reverse-search the image to learn about its source. If it comes from NASA, look for the different captions they use for the image and who they credit with it.
Scientists and artists work together to visually interpret and depict the data from these satellites and telescopes in order to show us things we would otherwise never see. We can strive for objectivity in the quest for truth, but at the end of the day, the world connects most with advances in science by interacting and engaging with the visual representations of these scientific findings. Science leaves us these clues, and art gives us perspectives of the world we never knew were possible—in such great detail that people think they’re the real thing!
What is so remarkable about these works is that their incredible detail is true to their scientific origins, and they provide the world with as close as we can get to experiencing photographic visualizations of outer space. Astrophysical artworks like these remind us how much bigger the universe is than we could ever fully comprehend. So whether you hear about a new discovery light years away or see a recent image of the Milky Way galaxy, there’s a good chance that there were artists involved every step of the way.
©ArtRKL™️ LLC 2021-2024. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. ArtRKL™️ and its underscore design indicate trademarks of ArtRKL™️ LLC and its subsidiaries.
