1 00:00:01,480 --> 00:00:07,980 Hubble is best known for its stunning images along with its many incredible discoveries. 2 00:00:08,540 --> 00:00:15,020 But, sometimes the science does not come hand-in-hand with a breathtaking view of the Universe. 3 00:00:16,440 --> 00:00:22,920 Raise the curtain for the artists creating remarkable impressions of the cosmos. 4 00:00:35,600 --> 00:00:42,340 Hubble is equipped with extremely sensitive cameras that capture light across different wavelengths: 5 00:00:42,380 --> 00:00:46,840 from the ultraviolet, to the optical, to the near infrared. 6 00:00:47,160 --> 00:00:52,300 This enables the telescope to create the stunning and well known images. 7 00:00:55,940 --> 00:01:01,540 However sometimes an astronomical discovery is no more than a tiny dot, 8 00:01:01,540 --> 00:01:08,220 and it takes delicate techniques and many observations to get useful information from it. 9 00:01:10,560 --> 00:01:20,220 Hubble’s spectrographs deliver even less than dots: wiggly curves, showing the intensity of light at different wavelengths. 10 00:01:21,300 --> 00:01:25,440 Hubble is a fantastic telescope, but it cannot observe everything. 11 00:01:25,440 --> 00:01:31,940 So it collects a lot of data in the form of spectrum, for example, something which is not exactly a “real” image, 12 00:01:31,940 --> 00:01:36,620 and that’s why we need to step in to create these catchy illustrations and animations. 13 00:01:36,620 --> 00:01:39,540 And of course many other objects in the universe we can observe them, 14 00:01:39,540 --> 00:01:42,680 we know that they are there through a lot of mathematics and physics 15 00:01:42,680 --> 00:01:47,780 and all kinds of interesting conclusions that the astronomers can come up with from the data, 16 00:01:47,780 --> 00:01:50,220 but not exactly through amazing images. 17 00:01:50,220 --> 00:01:56,360 So that's precisely how we step in, why we step in, so we can create some catchy and interesting images 18 00:01:56,360 --> 00:02:00,200 to precisely capture the imagination and the interest of the public. 19 00:02:05,440 --> 00:02:12,800 The artists working on illustrations of Hubble’s discoveries have gained a great deal of experience over time. 20 00:02:13,680 --> 00:02:17,780 In addition, they are equipped with proper background knowledge, 21 00:02:17,780 --> 00:02:23,320 they ensure their illustrations and animations are as realistic as possible. 22 00:02:47,020 --> 00:02:51,300 My personal background is in physics and astronomy, so I actually studied this. 23 00:02:51,720 --> 00:02:54,080 But Martin’s background is in art. 24 00:02:54,080 --> 00:02:59,580 So we work as a team and we always interact when we create these kind of animations and illustrations 25 00:03:00,460 --> 00:03:03,200 — we complement each other with our skill sets. 26 00:03:03,800 --> 00:03:09,960 Our team has been creating these kind of illustrations and animations for Hubble since 2000 27 00:03:09,960 --> 00:03:11,360 — so it’s been quite some years. 28 00:03:11,360 --> 00:03:18,180 I’ve been in this team for ten years, Martin a bit longer. So almost two decades of doing this work for Hubble. 29 00:03:19,760 --> 00:03:25,000 Not only do the artists working for ESA/Hubble come with years of experience, 30 00:03:25,220 --> 00:03:31,740 but they also collaborate with the scientists on site to make sure their art and Hubble’s science 31 00:03:31,740 --> 00:03:33,980 are truthfully coupled together. 32 00:03:35,300 --> 00:03:39,700 In the team we have astronomers and scientists that we work always together with. 33 00:03:39,700 --> 00:03:42,740 We talk to them, we discuss, we get drawings, we get input, 34 00:03:42,740 --> 00:03:47,500 and obviously they are the scientists that created the results we are trying to illustrate. 35 00:03:47,500 --> 00:03:53,040 So they usually get an early version of our animations and illustrations, they get their input 36 00:03:53,420 --> 00:03:58,940 — so it is a constant dialogue with the scientists, so we are not alone, definitely. 37 00:03:59,860 --> 00:04:05,760 Frequently we have some very well-defined boundaries and conditions that we need to meet. 38 00:04:05,760 --> 00:04:10,220 If the star has a certain temperature that we know about, the star has to be a certain colour. 39 00:04:10,220 --> 00:04:16,320 This is for sure. We cannot be ultra-creative and just create any colour in the star, in this specific example. 40 00:04:17,160 --> 00:04:22,780 So if a planet is given a specific mass we know it's gonna be rocky, or if it's gonna be gaseous. 41 00:04:22,820 --> 00:04:27,600 So those conditions have to be met. Other than that we can have a bit of creativity 42 00:04:27,600 --> 00:04:32,320 but always within the physical realism, of course. We cannot go out of that. 43 00:04:37,600 --> 00:04:43,280 While the artists try to make the animations for Hubble as realistic as possible, 44 00:04:43,280 --> 00:04:49,280 astronomical phenomena and the timescales they occur over, do not always work in their favour. 45 00:04:50,120 --> 00:04:55,740 Galaxy collisions take millions of years, only to speed up at the very end, 46 00:04:55,820 --> 00:05:01,520 and stars evolve over billions of years, but end their life in seconds. 47 00:05:01,880 --> 00:05:05,480 This represents a true challenge for our artists! 48 00:05:09,040 --> 00:05:13,440 Sometimes we are illustrating a few milliseconds — an explosion, 49 00:05:13,500 --> 00:05:18,500 and then maybe millions of years, some other phenomenon. 50 00:05:18,500 --> 00:05:22,400 And we want to show it in the same animation and this sometimes can be complex. 51 00:05:22,520 --> 00:05:26,160 But of course those are more illustrative kind of animations. 52 00:05:32,480 --> 00:05:35,900 For many illustrations of astronomical discoveries 53 00:05:35,900 --> 00:05:41,480 we will most likely never be able to check how well they depict reality. 54 00:05:41,480 --> 00:05:45,400 However, with the advancement of telescopes and technology, 55 00:05:45,420 --> 00:05:51,300 and as space probes are sent to bodies in the Solar System that have never been seen before, 56 00:05:51,300 --> 00:05:58,320 visual artists are sometimes provided a rare opportunity to check the accuracy of their work. 57 00:06:00,100 --> 00:06:05,120 A nice example, was for example an illustration we made a few years ago of Pluto 58 00:06:05,120 --> 00:06:07,080 when we still didn’t have very good images of Pluto 59 00:06:07,080 --> 00:06:12,120 There were some science results — we knew that there was some methane, there was a thin atmosphere on Pluto 60 00:06:12,120 --> 00:06:13,940 — so we made some illustrations. 61 00:06:13,940 --> 00:06:18,940 And it was pretty interesting to compare them when New Horizons arrived at Pluto, a couple of years ago, 62 00:06:18,940 --> 00:06:23,620 and we could actually compare our own illustrations to the real images. 63 00:06:23,620 --> 00:06:27,600 And it was quite thrilling to see that they were very close to what we represented! 64 00:06:32,020 --> 00:06:38,780 Pluto’s surface shows how accurately the artists at ESA/Hubble manage to illustrate reality. 65 00:06:39,660 --> 00:06:45,380 As well as making the illustrations as accurate as possible, the artists have another goal: 66 00:06:45,440 --> 00:06:53,080 they want to thrill and intrigue, creating art that grabs the attention and interest of the viewer. 67 00:07:02,960 --> 00:07:10,940 With their work, Hubble’s artists allow us to conceptualise and understand complex astronomical data, 68 00:07:10,940 --> 00:07:17,520 which might otherwise remain hidden in the graphs and tables of practiced astronomers. 69 00:07:18,920 --> 00:07:25,440 We want to create catchy and interesting images because the science is catchy and interesting!