Illustrations by Moonrunner

About Moonrunner:

Moonrunner is primarily known for its science-based illustrations, especially in such fields as astro-physics, cosmology, dark energy, black holes, the solar system and such stellar phenomena as quasars, star nurseries and pulsars. We have worked with Stephen Hawking, as well as with the scientist/authors of the National Geographic and Scientific American magazines, and also those publishing with Dorling Kindersley, Weidenfeld & Nicolson and Weldon Owen.

Click on the images to see what they represent.

Star Axis by Charles Ross

About the project:

Star Axis is a part of the Land Art movement begun in the 1960s and 70s. Located in the New Mexico desert, Star Axis was conceived in 1971 and is now nearing completion. This earthwork is on an Egyptian or pre-Columbian scale. It includes a Solar Pyramid, where from inside you can view an hour of Earth’s rotation. The central element of Star Axis, the Star Tunnel, is cut into the side of a mesa with an ascending 60 metre stairway in perfect alignment with the axis of the earth. As visitors climb the stairs of the Star Tunnel they pass through 26,000 years of Earth/star history, viewing distant past and future aspects of Earth’s shifting alignment with the stars.

Eleven stories high and 1/10th mile across, Star Axis is an architectonic sculpture that literally places viewers inside the trajectory of the earth’s axis. Like the observatories of many ancient cultures, Star Axis captures earth/star alignments. Ross remarks: “Each element of Star Axis, every shape, every measure, every angle, was first discovered by astronomical observation and then brought down into the land – star geometry anchored in earth and rock.”

Island Universe by Josiah McElheny

About the piece:

McElheny collaborated with cosmologist David Weinberg for Island Universe to create abstract sculptures that are scientifically accurate models of Big Bang theory as well as illustrations of the ideas that followed the general acceptance of the theory. The varying lengths of the rods are based on measurements of time, the clusters of glass discs and spheres accurately represent the clustering of galaxies in the universe, and the light bulbs mimic the brightest objects that exist, quasars. Island Universe proposes a set of possibilities that could have burst into existence depending on the amount of energy or matter present at the universe’s origin. The installation creates a three-dimensional map of what cosmologists call ‘The Multiverse’, a set of variations and materializations of other potential universes. In this unlikely collision of interior design and cosmology, McElheny finds a host of ideas that intersect modernity’s ruins, the history of metaphysics and abstract art to create a work of breathtaking formal beauty.