For me as a scientist, space exploration is about viewing landscapes to imagine the underlying reason that it is both ordinary and strange.
- Professor Paul Murdin
What can a picture tell us about our world - and our universe?
Professor Paul Murdin says images from outer space can give scientists useful information which they can use to infer what lies behind the image and to imagine what conditions may have caused particular landscapes.
Professor Murdin, Senior Fellow Emeritus at the Institute of Astronomy, has recently published a book drawing parallels between our terrestrial landscapes and space landscapes and will be speaking about it in a session at the Hay Festival on 2nd June as part of the Cambridge Series at the Hay Festival.
Professor Murdin’s talk will include cutting edge images of towering cliffs and icy canyons on distant planets, from mountain ranges on Mars to a volcanic landscape on Venus.
He says such images, in addition to their aesthetic appeal, pique the scientific imagination. “For me as a scientist,” he states, “space exploration is about viewing landscapes to imagine the underlying reason that it is both ordinary and strange.”
In the last few years, thanks to technological advances, the images sent back from space have been increasingly detailed and have prompted speculation about the history of distant planets. Last week, for instance, a report from the Planetary Science Institute stated that mega-tsunamis in an ancient ocean on Mars may have shaped the landscape and left deposits that hint at whether the planet was once habitable.
Professor Murdin decided to write his book, Planetary Vistas. The Landscapes of Other Worlds, as a result of a road trip to the US. He says: “I was in White Sands, New Mexico, and the scenery reminded me of pictures that I had seen of Mars. The idea came to mind of a book about the surfaces of planets and their moons, based on what you would see as a space tourist.”
Cambridge Series at the Hay Festival
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Image: Sand dunes on Mars
Credit: Mars Opportunity Rover, Pancam image by NASA/JPL/Cornell and the Pancam team
Reproduced courtesy of the University of Cambridge
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