Wednesday, May 27, 2015

Week 9: Space and Art


The idea of space is very important when it comes to my major in college because it defines all relationships of objects.  As a Geography/Environmental Studies major at UCLA, the idea of space versus place is covered as a concept of information.  A place is a coordinate space that has a meaning or an attribute given by humans to it.  The meaning behind a building is that we call it so as we see it in space.  Space is a combination of many different arts, but I like how naturally artistic space is and how fascinated humans are with the natural occurrences of the known world.

The fascination of space objects leads back to a classic phenomenon that occurs about every 75 years, the sighting of Halley’s comet. (Space.com) Halley’s comet is an event that people and media rave about when it is coming near the time for it to intersect paths with Earth.  The temporal space that allows it to be seen every 75 years puts the comet in an artistic constant that allows people to hype the occasion, and beautiful photos of the natural phenomenon occur to preserve the once in a lifetime moment.  Astrologist from all countries sent out probes and spacecrafts to capture the day that Halley’s comet passed by close enough to Earth for it to be recorded. The beauty of a large object burning up in space has marveled humans because it shows a product of places we will never go and things too foreign to make sense of.  The art in Halley’s comet it that it stretches the human mind to think beyond our normal scope of life.

Another fascination in space is the existence of black holes.  The idea of a singular point being so dense in mass that it takes in all other is hard to understand if you think about it.  The black hole is also an artistic nightmare because you can never really get close enough to it to depict the emotions and attributes that form its nature, due to it would suck you into its dense point.  The depictions of a black hole are all artistic renderings, and they all show the destructive power that comes with the spatial effects of a black hole.  In all media, the black hole is seen as a devastating act of nature to be feared, just as space has always been seen as a vast space of fear and unknown.


Works Cited/Links


Howell, Elizabeth. "Halley's Comet: Facts About the Most Famous Comet." Space.com. 20 Feb. 2013. Web. 27 May 2015. <http://www.space.com/19878-halleys-comet.html>.

Gefter, Amanda. "The Strange Fate of a Person Falling into a Black Hole." BBC Earth. 25 May 2015. Web. 27 May 2015. <http://www.bbc.com/earth/story/20150525-a-black-hole-would-clone-you>.

"The Return of Halley's Comet." ASP. 1985. Web. 27 May 2015. <http://astrosociety.org/edu/publications/tnl/01/01.html>.

"Halley's Comet Returns in Bits and Pieces." NASA Science. Web. 27 May 2015. <http://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/1998/ast20oct98_1/>.

"Black Holes." NASA Science. Web. 27 May 2015. <http://science.nasa.gov/astrophysics/focus-areas/black-holes/>.

1 comment:

  1. I would agree that space, especially the objects that occupy it, is a marvel for humanity. As a species grown on Earth, the objects that move and manipulate space are great visual and intellectual experiences for a person. As something that is much larger and greater than a single human, the understanding of space is also very limited. However, with time hopefully the understanding and appreciation of space and its entities will continue to grow.

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