Featured Space Artist: Lynette R. Cook

I grew up with an interest in both art and science. By the time I graduated from the Mississippi University for Women with a double major in Drawing & Painting and Biology, I had decided to become a scientific illustrator.

At the California College of Arts and Crafts I received my Master of Fine Arts Degree with a specialization in science illustration. Freelance work at the California Academy of Sciences in San Francisco, California led to the staff position of Artist/Photographer at the Morrison Planetarium, a position I held for sixteen years.

While much of my early freelance art included botanical and biological subjects, by 1995 I decided to concentrate on astronomical themes. This was the year that the first planet was discovered around a sunlike star, 51 Pegasi, and I wanted to create a painting of what this planet might look like. Soon thereafter the team of Geoff Marcy and Paul Butler announced their first two extrasolar planet discoveries.

I contacted Dr. Marcy to ask if he might be willing to share his scientific findings with me so that I might illustrate his new planets. He agreed enthusiastically, and that launched what has now become my decade-long focus on exoplanets and related topics. The artwork I have created as a result has been published in a variety of ways, including documentaries on BBC Television, CNN, and PBS, and in the publications Astronomy, bild der wissenschaft (Germany), Eos (Belguim), Focus (Italy), Muy Interesante (Spain), Newsweek, Science et Vie (France), and Sky & Telescope.

Most of my work at the rough stage is done on computer, with many of the finished illustrations created with traditional media. Some finals are created all digitally, and some are composites of digital and traditional elements.

Just in time for the tenth anniversary of the first confirmed extrasolar planet orbiting another sun, I have illustrated two books on the topics of planets and life in space. The first is a children’s picture book written by Paul Halpern, Professor of Physics at the University of the Sciences in Philadelphia, and published by Charlesbridge Publishing. It is called “Faraway Worlds: Planets Beyond Our Solar System.”

The second book is for the adult reader and is titled “Infinite Worlds: An Illustrated Voyage to Planets Beyond Our Sun.” My coauthor is Ray Villard, the News Director at the Space Telescope Science Institute. Infinite Worlds includes a foreword by Geoff Marcy and an afterword by Frank Drake, and is published by the University of California Press. This book is an exploration of our cosmos and includes topics like the formation of planets and the possibilities for finding life elsewhere in our universe.

The featured art is copyright of the artist.

Lynette R. Cook [Fullsize - 3,407 KB ]
Country:	USA
City:	Daly City

[Fullsize Original] 725 KB [Large JPEG] 263 KB [Screensize JPEG] 136 KB	Space Colonies Near a White Dwarf Medium: Acrylic, Acrylic Gouache, Colored Pencil This painting developed out of my fascination with the Hubble photo of planetary nebula NGC 3132. I wondered what it might look like to be in the middle of a nebula similar to this. My painting shows a white dwarf that has gone through earlier evolutionary stages. The intelligent life forms living on these space colonies once thrived on a planet orbiting the star when it was in its Sunlike phase. These beings learned to adapt; they moved farther away from the star when it became a red giant and now live on specially built habitats near the star in its white dwarf stage.
[Fullsize Original] 1,139 KB [Large JPEG] 526 KB [Screensize JPEG] 302 KB	Gliese 876 System Medium: Acrylic, Acrylic Gouache, Colored Pencil Gliese 876 has two confirmed extrasolar planets that are locked in sync, with periods of 60 and 30 days. Both can be seen from the surface of a hypothetical moon. Unlike most extrasolar worlds discovered to date, these orbit a red dwarf star.
[Fullsize Original] 994 KB [Large JPEG] 421 KB [Screensize JPEG] 243 KB	HD209458 Research Station Medium: Digital and Traditional (Acrylic, Acrylic Gouache, Colored Pencil, Watercolor) In the distant future, a group of scientists lives in a research station hovering above the sodium clouds of the planet HD209458b. The structure is protected from the hot sun by special screens. While this is not a hospitable environment, it is nevertheless an amazing place for a few adventurous people to conduct research.
[Fullsize Original] 1,082 KB [Large JPEG] 494 KB [Screensize JPEG] 294 KB	M4 Planet and Moon Medium: Acrylic, Acrylic Gouache, Colored Pencil The globular cluster M4 contains the oldest planet discovered to date, with an age of 13 billion years. This world orbits a binary system comprised of a pulsar and a white dwarf star. In this hypothetical scenario, one of the planet’s moons was kicked out of its original, stable orbit and now moves about the planet at an inclined angle, providing a view of the planet’s polar cap and aurora.
[Fullsize Original] 1,096 KB [Large JPEG] 485 KB [Screensize JPEG] 286 KB	Planet Near the Siamese Squid Nebula Medium: Acrylic, Acrylic Gouache, Colored Pencil One of my favorite Hubble images is that of the planetary nebula M2-9, affectionately called the “Siamese Squid.” It is not known whether a planet lurks near this nebula, but if it does, perhaps it resembles this one. The ultraviolet light from the white dwarf causes different minerals in the rock to fluoresce in pink and green colors.
[Fullsize Original] 820 KB [Large JPEG] 306 KB [Screensize JPEG] 166 KB	Transit of HD209458 Medium: Acrylic, Acrylic Gouache, Colored Pencil This is the first exoplanet confirmed via two methods – by detecting the wobble of its star and by observing a dip in the star’s light as it passed in front of the star. This is how the planet HD209458b looks when it transits the host star.
[Fullsize Original] 878 KB [Large JPEG] 322 KB [Screensize JPEG] 171 KB	Under the Ice Medium: Acrylic, Acrylic Gouache, Colored Pencil Does life exist elsewhere in the universe, and in forms more complex than bacteria? Of course the answer is unknown, but it is fun to speculate. Here is one of my ideas for alien life: a large fish and tiny invertebrates that swim in the dark ocean of an ice-covered, Europa-like moon.
[Fullsize Original] 1,876 KB [Large JPEG] 1,011 KB [Screensize JPEG] 628 KB	Galactic Center Medium: Acrylic, Acrylic Gouache, Colored Pencil The evening sky as seen from a planet in the center of the Milky Way is a tapestry of light. A myriad of stars twinkle in the distance. The Arches Cluster hovers at the upper left, while the bright Pistol Star shines radiantly ahead, near the horizon. The concentration of stars in the upper right marks the galaxy’s core. This is where the Milky Way’s supermassive black hole resides.

The featured art is copyright of the artist. Mail to lynette@spaceart.org or go to http://extrasolar.spaceart.org/ http://www.markgarlick.com/ for more information.

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