The unthinking artist

I am beginning to like these short posts. They impose so little on my time. More importantly, they impose far less on my brain.

Given below is the image from an article in the Hindustan Times of today (2012-08-02) entitled After Moon, India reaches for Mars.

 Look at it carefully.

The shadow of the spacecraft looms over what appears to be at least 5% of the Martian surface. At first glance, it appears wider than the path of a Solar eclipse on the earth! The image is the imagination of the artist, from what vantage point, I haven’t a clue except that it has to be at least as far away from the planet as the spacecraft is. Otherwise, capturing the space craft and its shadow in its details, and also the planet to the extent in the image is impossible. But, is the shadow itself possible? Remember, the Sun is much farther away than it is from the earth.

  The earth from space

Mars from space

Take a look at the images above, not artist’s impressions but true photographs of the earth and Mars (all from the Net). Just assume that the artist’s impression is from a similar vantage point. Do you imagine that a spacecraft at that altitude will cast a shadow (from light from the Sun) that can be seen at that size from the assumed distance? That is a rhetorical question. Please do not answer that.

The artist did not think along the lines I had sketched above. The first lesson in ray optics will tell you that at that distance, the Sun's rays will be parallel. Just think: How large is the shadow of an airplane on the surface of the earth? Do we see shadows of all the satellites that are up there circling the earth?

You may argue that, “An artist does not necessarily think, she only feels. She has made the image more striking. Do you deny that?” No I do not deny that. But the dramatics - introducing the shadow - has distorted reality. Well, that goes under the rubric of the artist’s liberty, I suppose.

I have nothing to say against this line of argument.

Raghuram Ekambaram