Best Jobs In Science: NASA Concept Illustrators Turn Raw Data Into Art
We talked to the Spitzer Space Telescope's visualization team about the challenges and rewards of rendering the mission's reams of non-visual data into something that catches the public eye. Plus: a gallery of their all-time favorite works In a shared office on the southern edge of Caltech's campus, Robert Hurt and Tim Pyle are making art out of science. Armed with the industry standards-Photoshop, Illustrator, After Effects-it's their job to break down the Spitzer Space Telescope's complex scientific data into visualizations that are accessible and meaningful to the average viewer. But their artistic challenge is unique: Human eyes are incapable of actually seeing the objects they are creating. Spitzer's infrared instruments return reams of data to Earth as the orbiting observatory gathers light from far reaches of the universe, light that is invisible to the naked eye. Imaging instruments capture some visual data that specialized software can cobble together into composite...