Over the past few weeks, we’ve watched Pluto transform from a fuzzy gray ball into a reddish-pink world with ice plains, mountains ranges, and hints of geologic activity. But science isn’t the only great thing about the recent Pluto discoveries: The new artwork is pretty stellar, too.
Ron Miller's new coffee table book The Art of Space is a gorgeous history of scientific illustrations, full of retro rockets and stunning planetscapes. It's also a glimpse back at the cutting-edge astronomy of yesteryear. We've got a gallery of some of the most striking work from the book.
The prospect of future tourists gawking at the ice fountains of Enceladus, the volcanoes of Io and the grand canyons of Mars has many people forgetting what's in their own backyard.
People like to make lists of things, especially lists of superlatives: the best, fastest, oldest, largest, heaviest and so on. There are lists of the ten fastest animals and the ten longest rivers and even of the ten highest-paid rock stars. The Guinness company created a small industry from publishing lists exactly…
I picked half a dozen or so of my favorite illustrations and made them wallpaper-sized for all of my io9 friends.
While astronomical art is my specialty, I can't do planets 24 hours a day. So sometimes I set that aside to do something to get my mind off Mars or Titan or Gliese 467b or whatever it is I have been sweating over. H.P. Lovecraft has always been one of my favorite authors, so a few months ago I started a series of…
When we discover a brand new exoplanet, we can only imagine what it might look like. But luckily for us, our imagination has some pretty brilliant visual aids. Artists (including our own Ron Miller) have created some droolworthy images of planets outside our solar system. Here are the most gorgeous of them all.
Last week, the ESA released unprecedented images of a long, meandering river on the surface of Saturn's moon Titan. Most likely the river flows with ethane or methane, and might be slightly viscous like oil. Now, space artist and io9 contributor Ron Miller has created these gorgeous up-close visions of the river from…
BETTER THAN TATTOOINE | Our own Ron Miller shares his artist's impression of Kepler 47c, the first binary star system with more than one planet in it. Check out the full version below.
NASA's Cassini spacecraft has spotted methane lakes in the so-called "tropics" of Saturn's moon, Titan. (Where temperatures reach a balmy −179 °C, or −290 °F.) The lakes were a bit of a surprise to researchers who had assumed that the long-standing liquid bodies would only exist at the poles. The discovery also raises…
Concept Artist Ron Miller (who often contributes to io9) wanted to celebrate his wife Judith's recent victory over cancer with something spectacular — something bold and glorious like the Planet Stories covers they both love. So they created Captain Judikha. Together they stitched a glorious vintage super suit and…
Everything comes to an end, and our sun is no exception. A star happily cooking along in its middle age, Sol has many millions of good years ahead of it — but its eventual doom is certain. Here's what that will look like.
Is the world going to come to an end? Certainly! The real question is how it might happen. That's what this gallery is all about.
It would sometimes seem as though there are two solar systems: One including planets, and another including moons. Until recently, most books about the solar system focused on the planets, stopping only to acknowledge the existence of their satellites with a kind of half-embarrassed nod. They would be discussed as a…
The greatest science fiction art doesn't just light up your retinas with wonder and strangeness — it also makes you think, just like great science fiction writing. A new book, SciFi Art Now, contains mind-blowing futuristic and strange art.
