Posted on June 19, 2002

• I received quite a few emails regarding my previous post. It would seem that most of you agree with me that quality matters more than quantity. The response was truly overwhelming. Thank you to everyone who has expressed support.

• As I mentioned last time, my next project was going to be of a scientific nature. The day I posted “Null” I got a letter from an astronomer at JPL. She informed me that she and some of her collegues were big fans of my artwork. It was truly a chest-puffing moment of pride for me. I imagine these guys must be pretty hard to impress.

  Anyway, the nice lady was writing to ask if I did requests. Normally I’m happy to listen to all requests but I never promise anything. This one, however, really piqued my interest. She wanted to know if I could depict a very young star, not yet burning hydrogen. She explained it thusly: “One thing that is characteristic of all young stellar objects at this stage, as far as we can tell, is that they are not only accreting material, but they are blowing some of it back out in the form of jets that emerge along the axis of rotation.”. She supplied a link to some Hubble photos taken of these young stars.

  So, that is the story behind “Newborn“, my latest addition to the gallery. There are still some things I would like to tweak in this image so don’t be surprised if you see another version before the end of the week. Hope you like it!