The artist who showed you what space looks like [View all]

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To illustrate a talk about the search for alien worlds at the TED conference, MIT professor Sara Seager flashed a lava-soaked landscape teeming with fireballs and gurgling streams. On the bottom corner of the slide, it read “Artist Conception Credit: Ron Miller.”


Though his name was displayed in tiny letters, Ron Miller, 67, is a titan in the field of space art, also known as astronomical art. Space art is a specialization that seeks to portray realistic and persuasive visions of the universe, galaxies, exoplanets, and even solar eclipses.

A former art director at the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum, the award-winning artist is the author of 50-plus books, including what’s considered the most comprehensive volume on astronomical art, The Art of Space. Miller’s spectacular vistas, along with the work of a select group of artists, have fed the collective imagination about outer space for film, illustrations, and visual culture writ large.

On a day when many people are looking up the sky, Quartz interviewed Miller about his creative process and the burgeoning field of space art.

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http://qz.com/366109/how-space-art-is-made/