'STELLAR SPIRITS'

"Stellar Spirits" by Michael C. Turner
©2008/2009 ~ Galactic Visions Space Art
Digital painting created using Corel Photo-Paint 12
No filters or special effects or picture brushes were used. This image was created to simulate traditional brush and pigment techniques.

A view from a planetary system orbiting a multiple stellar system similar to Rigel A.* The blue super-giant star is a physical binary with its smaller yellow-white star (similar to Earth’s sun, Sol. They travel in space around a central gravitational orbit along with two other stars, making this a quadruple star system. Huge plumes of stellar gas and plasma erupt from the surface of these celestial siblings as the larger, blue star, devours the gas form the smaller, yellow-white star. A crescent moon is silhouetted against the blue star as it transits the orbital plane. Another moon transits the yellow-white star. A smaller planetoid/asteroid orbits the closer moon as they co-orbit the larger (out of frame) planet in the planetary system.

*Rigel A is a hot, blue B8Ia supergiant having about 40,000 times the luminosity of the sun and 60-70 times the sun's diameter. It has a temperature of about 22,000 F and a mass about 20 times that of the sun. Rigel is located near the foot of Orion (The Hunter) in the Orion Nebula. Orion is visible in the late fall (winter is the best viewing season) to the early spring evening skies of the Northern Hemisphere.

May All Your Visions Be Galactic Visions ~ Michael C. Turner