-Science fiction has a lot more in terms of interesting worlds than I initially thought.
-Cartoons and video games seem to be particularly fruitful in producing creative alien planets. Probably due to the fact that everything must be drawn/rendered from scratch.
-Interstellar is the best sci-fi movie in a long time, and may be the most scientifically grounded sci-fi movie of all time.
-The IAU is not to be trusted.
-Professional scientists enjoy creating planets.
As an anniversary present, I'm going to link to the Galactic Geographic.
This is a (fake) successor to the National Geographic set a thousand years in the future. I'm not going to embed any other images in this post because I don't know if the artist derives his living from these. Be sure to go through the slideshow by clicking "Next" at the bottom of each full-size image, because not all the images are shown in the thumbnail page, and there's some good stuff hidden in there.
Speaking of, the artist is Karl B. Kofoed. Believe it or not, he's the guy who designed the famous "Hang in there!" cat poster.
Imagine my hilarious surprise when I saw this image; I first saw it about a week after posting my "Hestia" scenario. Kofoed visualizes an atmosphere clogged with algae better than I ever could by taking a stock image of a snowstorm and tinting it chartreuse. I guess sci-fi fanatics think alike.
Some other highlights:
-This spire of amethyst poking out of Europa's surface. No explanation is given; it's presented as an astro-geological mystery.
-This bizarre landscape on the Tsailerol homeworld.
-The appropriately-named Badlands on the Wo homeworld.
-A silicon-shard landscape.
-A planet suspiciously similar to Hal Clement's Mesklin (we'll get to Clement, I promise).
-Some kind of stratospheric ecosystem on a tidally locked planet.
-Golden moon. Really.
I hope you find this gallery as inspiring as I have. This is exactly what I created this blog to find. It's been an enlightening year.
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