Pruned: Titanic Lakes

Saturday, February 23, 2008 | Permalink

(Image courtesy of NASA/JPL/USGS.)

Behold some 400 “lakes and seas” on Saturn's moon, Titan, as captured by the spacecraft Cassini. Rendered with the auric exuberance of Klimt and the bold angularity of Schiele, through complicated parabolas and hyperbolas, one wonders if NASA astronomers and computer scientists aren't attempting to formulate an official visual style. Instead of sci-fi realism, extraterrestrial landscapes and future colonized worlds will be illustrated in a sort of hyperdecorative post-art nouveau style. Or not.

In any case, as the above resized image does no justice to the original, you should download the full satellite composite image, either the 10MB jpeg version or the 186MB tiff version.

In the Archives:
Sugimoto in Titan

4 Comment(s)

Jean-Simon DesRochers said...: ( February 24, 2008 8:19:00 AM CST ); Hum, Titan is a moon orbiting around Saturn, not Jupiter.
Alexander Trevi said...: ( February 24, 2008 8:36:00 AM CST ); Oops! Titan has been returned to its correct orbit.
happy consumptive said...: ( March 1, 2008 7:25:00 PM CST ); Your note about an official visual style reminded me of these USGS maps of lunar geology. Hoovering so many feeds these days I probably saw them first here. ;)
Alexander Trevi said...: ( March 1, 2008 8:09:00 PM CST ); Hey HC, those lunar maps are here.

And the Ganymede maps are here.

Now I'm trying to think if I had posted others. Thinking, thinking...

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Titanic Lakes Saturday, February 23, 2008 \| Permalink (Image courtesy of NASA/JPL/USGS.) Behold some 400 “lakes and seas” on Saturn's moon, Titan, as captured by the spacecraft Cassini. Rendered with the auric exuberance of Klimt and the bold angularity of Schiele, through complicated parabolas and hyperbolas, one wonders if NASA astronomers and computer scientists aren't attempting to formulate an official visual style. Instead of sci-fi realism, extraterrestrial landscapes and future colonized worlds will be illustrated in a sort of hyperdecorative post-art nouveau style. Or not. In any case, as the above resized image does no justice to the original, you should download the full satellite composite image, either the 10MB jpeg version or the 186MB tiff version. In the Archives: Sugimoto in Titan 4 Comment(s) Jean-Simon DesRochers said... ( February 24, 2008 8:19:00 AM CST ) Hum, Titan is a moon orbiting around Saturn, not Jupiter. Alexander Trevi said... ( February 24, 2008 8:36:00 AM CST ) Oops! Titan has been returned to its correct orbit. happy consumptive said... ( March 1, 2008 7:25:00 PM CST ) Your note about an official visual style reminded me of these USGS maps of lunar geology. Hoovering so many feeds these days I probably saw them first here. ;) Alexander Trevi said... ( March 1, 2008 8:09:00 PM CST ) Hey HC, those lunar maps are here. And the Ganymede maps are here. Now I'm trying to think if I had posted others. Thinking, thinking... Post a Comment

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