Graphic designer Nickolay Lamm, who previously showed us what America would like under 25 feet of seawater, has a new project that imagines New York City with the atmospheres of different planets in our solar system.
The illustrations, commissioned by StorageFront.com, were made with the help of Astrobiologist M. Browning Vogel, who worked at NASA Ames Research Center for a five years, and gave Lamm the descriptions for each planet.
In an artist's statement, Lamm said the images were inspired by photographs of Mount Sharp, a 3.4-mile-high peak at the center of Mars' Gale crater.
The drawings should serve as a wake-up call to people who take Earth's life-giving resources for granted.
Lamm compares humans to ants living on an enclosed farm. "If these ants ventured outside their ant farm, they'd realize just how uninhabitable other places are and appreciate their own home much more," he told us via email.
Meanwhile, scientists continue to shop for Earth replacements while developing a plan to send the first humans Mars.
This is Earth. Everything looks normal around the NYC skyline so far.
Here is New York City with the thin layer of gas, mostly consisting of hydrogen, that makes up Mercury's atmosphere. The transparent atmosphere shows the darkness of space and the radiance of the nearby sun.
Here is New York City with the atmosphere of Venus. Carbon dioxide and sulfuric acid clouds create an envelope of yellowish, hot air that blocks the NYC skyline and sun. The landscape is covered by craters, lava, sulfurous dust and other feature created by Venus' volcanoes.
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