As of September 2007 there have now been discovered over 250 extrasolar planets (or exoplanets), that is - planets outside our our solar system, either freely moving through space or orbiting another stella object. Despite an extensive and expanding catalogue of these worlds and data such as mass and distance from parent star, we still have yet to optically view these planets in anything but the most crudest resolution.

Visualizing these planets therefore comes down to the minimal scientific data gathered and a lot of imagination. I hope to use this to illustrate some of these new worlds discovered and the hypothetical ones that might just be out there.

On September 10th 2007 NASA’s Cassini spacecraft flew by Saturn’s moon Iapetus on its closest pass yet of a mere 1,000 mile altitude. Iapetus is a strange two toned moon with some incredible geological features such as the huge scarp in the Cassini Regio region and the baffling mountain range that encircles the moon’s equator and gives the world its strange walnut like appearance. The close flyby produced some excellent photos of the stange light and dark areas as well as the fantastic mountain range.

The event was highlighted by a video message from none other than Arthur C. Clarke. From his Sri Lankan home Clarke sent greetings to all involved in the project and gave his best wishes to the flyby event. Iapetus holds a great significance to Clarke and all who have read 2001 A space Odyssey as it is the location of the Saturn Monolith. Stanley Kubrick however altered the location to Jupiter for several reasons.

One of the series of illustrations I am working on features Saturn and its various moons as the subject. So far I have pieces with Mimas, Enceladus and Titan featured. However with the new images from this close flyby I hope to add to the series with a further illustration of Iapetus, in perticular its equator spanning mountain range.

Astronomical Art - The celestial illustrations of Christian Thrower will finally bring some of my work online and available for all those interested to see. illustrations will cover planets, moons and other bodies within our Solar System as well as some more distant, hypothetical views of extrasolar planets and other worlds beyond the reach of our prying telescopes.

Content will start appearing very soon.

CT