Sunday 11 January 2009

[Inspirational Pictures V] Planetary Cartography

Mars, I'm sure you'll agree, is a bit of an attention-seeking bastard when it comes to sci-fi and space opera. The red planet gets all the terraforming and colonisation while the other planets just have to watch from the sidelines. This is a great injustice that must be rectified.


A topography of Venus, complete with a handy colour scheme to make it easy to envisage seas and oceans. From this distance it almost looks like a pleasant place to pay a visit - though of course you can't see the clouds of sulphuric acid howling around its surface.


Titan's gigantic sea. Not composed of water, but of liquid methane. What form of life has it given rise to?


Nobody can see much of Pluto's surface. This is an imaginary map, based on that of Jupiter's moon Ganymede. I love the icy feeling of this image. Like Great Old Ones could be slumbering beneath its translucent surface, or The Thing - waiting for milennia after milennia for a host to inhabit.

3 comments:

  1. Schweet!

    Excellent images; thanks!

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  2. Man, I like how your mind works.

    Forgive my ignorance, but is the top map the entire planet, or just a part of a larger area?

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  3. Ken: You're welcome. ;)

    Ripper: It's the entire planet, with just the north and south poles slightly shaved off. It basically wraps round in all directions other than that. The North continent is about the size of Australia (the big mountainous blob is 11,000 metres high!) and the one which wraps around most of the equator is about as big as Latin America.

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