by Dirk Vander Ploeg
Eerie green light pervades planets orbiting pulsar PSR 1257 + 12.
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View from an asteroid of tightly orbiting red dwarfs with a tidally-locked planet in the system's liquid water zone. The planet's darkside ice cap is backlit from a white dwarf in the distance. |
When scientists need to visually see the landscape of a faraway planet they turn to the artist of the cosmos - Lynette Cook.
Many times the planet or object is purely conceptual. With nothing but scattered bits of information and a hunch they ask Cook, who always wanted to be a scientific illustrator, to visualize the impossible when putting brush to canvas.
The first planet detected outside of our solar system was discovered by astronomers in 1995. Cook, using only the findings of sophisticated machines, paints these unseen worlds and some of them defy imagination.
One of her creations captures the cosmic conflict around a sun-like star called HD 82943 in the constellation of Hydra (The Water Snake). Two Jupiter-size planets benevolently circle a star that is in the process of consuming another planet which is struggling against the sun's death grip and leaving a trail of fire as protest as it is engulfed.
Another image is of strange planet orbiting a pulsar (PSR 1257 + 12) that is cloaked in an unnatural green light. It emmits so much radiation that it is unlikely that any form of life could exist, but what if it did. What form would the life take? What could survive in this greenish world of mysterious mountains.
Lynette Cook has seen in her imagination living creatures on faraway planets. She envisions a Jupiter-style gas giant planet that is teeming with life. Life that does not walk on the surface of the planet but instead floats above it and drifts from place to place on the winds of the planet.
Her pictures -- her far-out visions of the unknown are now avaible for the first time in her book "Infinite Worlds".
"This is not science fiction," she said. "These planets are so far away we cannot look at them with a camera close up, so we can't have the assurance at this point of time that it's 100 percent accurate. And that's fun for me because I can use some imagination as long as it is scientifically plausible. It can't be too far-out or I can't do it."
More information about Lynette Cook's book available at Amazon.com.
Story source cnn.com
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