The Art of the Cosmos: Visions from the Frontier of Deep Space Exploration

Hundreds of deep space missions since the 1960s have captured stunning photographs of the cosmos. Many of these scientific images can also be classified as art. This book highlights more than 100 examples, revealing the splendor of our universe.

This book is a gallery of human accomplishment that celebrates the scientists and engineers who push civilization--including the ways that we produce and experience art--beyond the physical limits of our planet. The photographs, selected by Dr. Jim Bell, represent some of the finest examples of the art of deep space exploration, most of them involving high-tech robotic emissaries. The images are loosely organized by distance from the Earth, so that readers will slowly travel on a journey farther and farther away from home, ultimately voyaging out to vistas of the farthest-known places in the universe.

Dr. Jim Bell is a professor in the School of Earth and Space Exploration at Arizona State University, an adjunct professor in astronomy at Cornell University, and a Distinguished Visiting Scientist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory. He has been heavily involved in many NASA robotic space exploration missions, including the Near Earth Asteroid Rendezvous (NEAR), Mars Pathfinder, Mars Rovers (Spirit, Opportunity, and--ongoing, Curiosity and Perseverance), the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, and the Psyche asteroid orbiter. Bell was president of the Planetary Society from 2008-20 and received the 2011 Carl Sagan Medal from the American Astronomical Society. He has appeared on The Today Show, CNN, PBS, Discovery, National Geographic, and the History Channel. He has written numerous books, most recently, Hubble Legacy. He lives in Tempe, AZ.