Art Of Science Contest

Princeton University's science art contest features spacecraft that pass gas, lighthearted lasers and Sauron in space.

May 25, 2010

By Devin Powell
Inside Science News Service

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Xenon Plasma Accelerator

Credit: Jerry Ross

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WASHINGTON (ISNS) -- Physicist Jerry Ross doesn't spend a lot of time thinking about art. He builds and tests spacecraft engines at Princeton's Plasma Physics Laboratory in New Jersey. But when he heard about Princeton's "Art of Science" contest, he thought of the glowing plumes streaking out of his ion thrusters in a new light.

"I entered the contest on a whim," said Ross, who this year won first place and a check for $250.

Inside Science News Service has collected a few of our favorite entries. The images, produced by scientists during their experiments, are described below. The full gallery, which includes everything from dueling hippos to merging galaxies, can be found here.

1st Place - Spacecraft That Pass Gas (Image On Right)
It's not as powerful as Captain Kirk's warp drive engines. But the Hall-effect thruster pictured here is an up-and-coming technology that allows many of today's satellites and spacecraft to maneuver. These fuel-efficient thrusters use electric and magnetic fields to speed up and shoot out charged particles of xenon gas -- the glowing plume seen in this image -- to propel spacecraft forward.
Credit: Xenon Plasma Accelerator by Jerry Ross

2nd Place - Light Bulb Medicine
Credit: Therapeutic Illumination by David Nagib
Inspired by plants' ability to convert sunlight into food, these colorful chemicals -- called photocatalysts -- feed on light from a compact fluorescent bulb. They use the energy to spit out electrons that change the chemical structure of drug molecules, providing scientists with new way to synthesize new medicines.

3rd Place - Sauron in Space
Credit: Neutron Star Scattering off a Super Massive Black Hole by Tim Koby From planets to black holes, every astronomical object in the universe follows a path governed by the gravitational tugs it feels from everything else. Here, neutron stars -- objects so dense that a thimbleful contains as much mass as much as a mountain -- are drawn into a pattern familiar to Tolkien fans by a supermassive black hole.


Additional Contest Entries


Light-Hearted Lasers

Credit: Love-Hate Relationship by Nick Bax
In the right hands, a finely-focused beam becomes a pair of chopsticks for grasping microscopic objects. Here, a laser beam that refused to stay round frustrated a student trying to grab tiny beads so small that a thousand of them lined up would be as wide as a grain of salt.


Training the Equipment
Credit: The Neutron Express by Elle Starkman, Sly Vinson, Doug Darrow, Lane Roquemore
To calibrate an instrument that cost hundreds of millions of dollars, Princeton physicists turned to a technology available at the local hobby shop: the model train. They equipped a toy train with a device that produces neutrons -- tiny particles found in the hearts of atoms. For three days, the train ran in circles, bombarding a detector in the center with neutrons to prepare it for use in the National Spherical Torus Experiment.


Insect Wings or Insect Faces?
Credit: Stirring Faces by Steve Brunton
Hovering bumblebees and hummingbirds flap their wings in a figure eight motion, creating swirling vortices of air that keep them aloft. These eddies of air, seen above in water disturbed by a moving platform, occur separately at the front and back edges to keep the creatures aloft.