Under this thread I want to introduce some of my (newer and older) astronomical art renders, made with Terragen 3 and 4.
One the one hand, the depicted landscapes and sceneries are purely fictional, but on the other hand I try to be as realistic as possible and integrating the known facts of exoplanets in my renders (so for example the apparent diameters of planets and suns, light conditions on the surface, colors and atmospheric conditions...).
Because I have an affinity to astronomy and astrophysics , some descriptions will be a little ,,scientific".
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Let's imagine the antipodes of the Solar System: A place in space, about 60'000 lightyears away from here, behind the center of the milky way galaxy.
The inhabitable moon of an entirely water-covered Super-Earth orbiting a young Class A main sequence star, part of a triple system with two red dwarfs, visible over the horizon.
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This is the surface of the above mentioned Ocean Planet. The ocean of this planet covers the entire surface; no continents, no isles.
It reaches down several hundred kilometers (or miles, if you wish) with an immense pressure at the bottom, creating exotic materials like "Ice VII". It's not clear if such a planet is habitable (for humans) or not, despite the water. Because the planet is a Super-Earth (bigger and more massive than earth) the atmosphere also is very dense and under heavy pressure.
The Ocean Planet in very impressive, great work on the water.
Yeah! Great work, especially the ocean.
Mimic above, excellent
echo cyphyr...great stuff.
Always a fan of sci-fi (or sci-probability) images - you are off to a great start!
Great images!
Thanks to all of you for your comments.
Other renders will follow.
Another render of my "archive":
A panoramic view of an upcoming thunderstorm on a habitable exomoon.
This earth-like moon orbits a Jupiter-like host planet somewhere in the universe. The gas giant itself revolves in the habitable zone around a sun-like main sequence star. So to say a ,,warm" Jupiter.
Billions of years ago, the gas giant formed in the outer regions of this system, then moved in by gravitational perturbances to its present position, stable for the next couple of billions of years. This movement devastates and changed the whole system, by ejecting planets in the interstellar space or in the sun itself.
I am supposing a geologically very active moon with a ,,heavy climate", because the near gas giant is affecting its moon with his gravitation much more than our moon is affecting the earth.
Big tides not only in the water but also in the atmosphere, so severe climatic events are common, but life is very adaptable.
Three very beautiful images.
My newest render: An early and frosty morning on Mars on an ancient landslide, and I mean a really ,,frosty" morning, about -90° Celsius. At night the carbon dioxide in the atmosphere has frozen and, with the rising sun it will sublimate soon.
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It was a little tricky to create the half buried fake stones, partly covered with dust.
Nice images. I like especially the second one.
A new render of my "Red Worlds"-series:
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An imaginary view of the surface of Barnard's Star b, the nearest exoplanet orbiting a single star.
Nice. Perfect for a Riddick movie.
A suborbital flight over an habitable exomoon orbiting a gas giant:
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Only Terragen 4 and a minor color correction
Nice sense of scale. I'm sure this is an alien world so my Earth-based assumptions don't count, but given the water and terrain colors, those very yellow beaches do seem a bit odd. Perhaps there is a deep sulfur sediment at the bottom of the entire ocean? :D
- Oshyan
Who knows. Perhaps this exomoon is habitable for humans, but not without restrictions... ;)
For comparison: Version II with less yellowness of the beaches.
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Yes, for my taste this is better. But of course it is your scene and up to *your* taste! :)
- Oshyan
Very cool!
Amazing works!
A little astronomical sci-fi:
A hostile planet orbiting a young red dwarf binary system. The strong X- and UV-radiation is inducing Cherenkov radiation in the strange crystalline mountains.
Very inventive with the back story...I often feel that's what makes an image; oddly enough...I really like this one!
Quote from: raymoh on July 16, 2019, 02:16:19 PM
A little astronomical sci-fi:
A hostile planet orbiting a young red dwarf binary system. The strong X- and UV-radiation is inducing Cherenkov radiation in the strange crystalline mountains.
Cool seeing stuff like this coming from TG again. Nice work.
Nice idea and nice render. Could you get the crystalline structures a bit more glossy and trancelucent? That would improve the overal view very much I think :)
Quote from: DocCharly65 on July 17, 2019, 01:13:09 AM
...Could you get the crystalline structures a bit more glossy and trancelucent? That would improve the overal view very much I think :)
Echo this. Would really like to see how it turns out.
I am here because of the title. And not disappointed. :)
I'm working on my crystalline mountains.
Meanwhile an older render: An imaginary desert planet with two moons.
Mushroom Desert.png
Cool mushroom formations!
- Oshyan
Usually I'm not too fond of alien worlds/planets, but if executed nicely like this series it's definitely a joy to watch, great work! I especially like the water world and some of the dense atmosphere ones.
Thank you! Like I mentioned in my opening post, I'm always anxious to be as "realistic" as possible in my renders. Only the landscapes itself are purely imaginative.
Now here is an edited version of "Cherenkov's Planet". 3 layers of reflective/translucency shaders, raised the brightness, less fog and added some rays to one of the suns to accentuate the high radiation of this "flare event" that occurs to this red dwarf. Needed some render time.
Weird Worlds - Cherenkov's Planet.png
Cool! The spikes look a bit like jade.
Looks great!
A render from my "archives", now here on Planetside:
A stony plain covered with ice and snow on a supposed martian-sized moon of HD 220773 b, a gas giant a little more massive than Jupiter.
In about a ten year cycle most of the faint atmosphere of this moon is collapsing at apastron, due the highly eccentric orbit of its host planet. So the most of the visible snow and ice is the ,,condensed" atmosphere itself.
At periastron the atmosphere will ,,rebuild" to its normal martian-like state.
I presume that HD 220773 b has a thin ring of debris like Jupiter and we are admiring the ,,string of pearls", the exact ,,edge on"-moment of the ring. In a couple of minutes this spectacle is gone, like a solar eclipse.
HD 220773 b - Icy Moon.jpg
Also something from my archives. This render needs some scientific explanations.
2.5 trillion years in the future: This previously Red Dwarf with 16% of the solar mass has evolved in a so called Blue Dwarf. Most of the hydrogen in the entire star is consumed. By increasing the surface temperature and luminosity (to about a third of the solar luminosity) it reaches a new equilibrium that lasts another 5 billion years.
In this far future of the universe most of the more massive stars are ,,dead", changed into White or Black Dwarfs, Neutron Stars or Black holes. The luminous part of the still existing galaxies now are made of evolved Red Dwarfs. Very slowly the era of the luminous stars is going to an end... in about 100 trillion years the universe will go dark and black for human eyes (if the theories of the expanding universe are ,,true").
The render: An evolved Red Dwarf in the sky of a previously cold planet outside the habitable zone. Because the increased luminosity the planet is now in the middle of the new habitable zone, and ice of different origin aged billions of years begins to melt and forms a new atmosphere and shallow ponds, birthplaces for a second evolution.
There is no more geological activity and the entire planet is a vast plain, mountains and valleys eroded to boulders, stones, pebbles and dust in the last 2.5 trillion years. Nevertheless life will find a way.
Terragen 4 and Pixelmator
Evolved Red Dwarf.png
Such a seemingly simple scene, but I really love that low mist! And the balance of specular really works for me too.
- Oshyan
Barnard's Star b: A redesign
An imaginary view of the surface of Barnard's Star b, the nearest exoplanet orbiting a single star.
Barnard b is probably a rocky Super-Earth, or more precisely a ,,Super-Titan" with a dense atmosphere, or maybe a Mini-Neptune. It revolves on an eccentric orbit far outside the habitable zone of its host star, a dim Red Dwarf. So the surface temperature is about -170° C. The planet receives only about 2% of the energy the earth receives from the sun, mostly at infrared wavelengths. At the distance of Barnard b, the planet is no longer tidally locked, there will be day and night.
Barnard's Star and its planet are about twice as old as the Solar system (7 to 10 billion years).
In my renders I decided to show a rocky ice-world with a dense atmosphere composed of mostly nitrogen and various gaseous hydrocarbons. The ice itself is also from different origin: mostly methane-ice but also traces of rock-hard frozen water. No signs of life as we know it.
The sky is almost always overcast. So it's mostly a deep twilight trough the day.
Very rarely, when Barnard's Star is clearly visible, the still blinding disc is less than half as big as the sun seen from earth, the dim light has a distinct yellowish tinge and
at midday it will be only about 1000 times as bright as the full moon (or about 300 Lux, if you like).
Such a moment I captured in my first render. Barnard's Star shines trough a cloud gap for a couple of minutes, revealing an alien landscape with vast snow- and ice-fields, mountains and rocks that reminds somehow of Antarctica on earth.
My second render depicts the identical scenery the same day around midday. Now the sky is overcast with dense and thick (hydrocarbon) cloud layers, absorbing most of the sunlight. For human eyes it's nearly dark; a dim, diffuse and almost monochromatic twilight.
I love that first render, especially with your description. Great stuff!
Thank you very much. I am aware that the second render doesn't give much, but I decided to show it to demonstrate the lighting conditions. BTW: It took longer to render than the first one because of the different cloud layers
I continue to be impressed by your work.
Quote from: Dune on November 01, 2019, 04:08:59 AMI love that first render, especially with your description. Great stuff!
Echo Dune here..well done man!
The first one is great indeed, even without the description.
Quote from: Oshyan on October 03, 2019, 02:41:56 PMSuch a seemingly simple scene, but I really love that low mist! And the balance of specular really works for me too.
- Oshyan
"seemingly simple scene"...I love alliteration...and agree with the complete comment.
Thank you folks!
Here is another render (from my archive):
This is an earth-sized Carbon Planet, orbiting a star in the inner regions of our galaxy. Carbon Planets are hypothetical, but plausible and expected to exist.
Early morning over a vast, stony desert. Volcanic activity created this landscape long time ago, now eroding under the atmospheric conditions.
Soon the temperature will raise at about 70° C. The landscape is mostly covered with black, slightly reflecting graphite sand and dust. The winds have uncovered a big diamond lode, now glistening in the sun. Diamonds can be very common on Carbon Planets. There may be entire mountains made of this dense ,,carbon material", raised to the surface trough seismic activities.
Conditions for earthly life are really bad, but it would be a ,,paradise" for mining companies and petrochemical industries. All this carbon-based and carbon-enriched compounds...
Though I am missing a bit more bumpiness of the rocks on the right a cool scene.
For the glittering diamond look on the left there could be even a bit more glow and starburst effect.
A totally hypothetical planet of van Maanen's Star, the nearest single White Dwarf star. A White Dwarf is a tiny ,,end of lifetime"-stage of a sunlike star, after the ,,Red Giant"- stage. The sun itself will reach this stage as a stellar remnant in about 5 billion years from now.
This hypothetical planet survived the Red Giant stage of his host star, burnt nearly to ashes, partially melted and lost most of its atmosphere, blown into space.
An imaginary earth-like planet with two big moons. This world is in its early Proterozoic Era, like earth some 2.5 billion years ago. First lifeforms are evolving, metabolizing and enriching the planets atmosphere with oxygen.
The water of a shallow tidal pond is full of bacterias similar to cyanobacterias on earth, covering first local stromatolites and the shore with thick slimy carpets.
Woah, yeah! Foreground texturing is great.
- Oshyan
Quote from: Oshyan on December 23, 2019, 12:59:29 PMWoah, yeah! Foreground texturing is great.
- Oshyan
Second that, the detail looks great in the texturing. It's actually hard to really pick out any vanilla looking PFs.
Cool color scheme! Very alien indeed.
Acid extraterrestrial look! Great! (Though I never would bath my feet in that liquid!) :)
Another space art render:
CM Draconis, a real existing double star system of two faint red dwarfs in the constellation of the dragon, about 47 light years away. These two closely neighboring stars in turn orbit around a distant white dwarf star. The whole triple system is about twice as old as the sun.
I created a hypothetical small, cold, Mars-like planet. Billions of years ago, the existing water transformed into ice and formed a landscape like the Antarctic dry valleys of the Earth. As the eons passed, the atmosphere dissolved almost entirely. Here it is about as bright as on an overcast winter's day, so the brightest stars can be seen even during the day. The bright star to the left above the center of the image is the white dwarf. It is about as bright as Venus in the Earth's sky.
Quote from: raymoh on January 18, 2020, 11:06:59 AMAnother space art render:
CM Draconis, a real existing double star system of two faint red dwarfs in the constellation of the dragon, about 47 light years away. These two closely neighboring stars in turn orbit around a distant white dwarf star. The whole triple system is about twice as old as the sun.
I created a hypothetical small, cold, Mars-like planet. Billions of years ago, the existing water transformed into ice and formed a landscape like the Antarctic dry valleys of the Earth. As the eons passed, the atmosphere dissolved almost entirely. Here it is about as bright as on an overcast winter's day, so the brightest stars can be seen even during the day. The bright star to the left above the center of the image is the white dwarf. It is about as bright as Venus in the Earth's sky.
My favorite. Love the lighting in the sky and surfaces. Love the twisting/fractalization of the base surface.
Yes, this is a great terrain and lighting. I'm glad we only have one sun, or you'd feel drunk all the time :P
Great looking works!
Once again Mars:
An upcoming dust storm in the southern hemisphere. In a few days it will cover the entire planet.
A little science fiction:
Encounter in the asteroid belt: The small lights orbit the golden spaceship and seem to have something to do with communication. But nobody has been able to decipher the code so far.
The golden spaceship is a fractal made with the program "Mandelbulber" and inserted in a Terragen render.
Cool renders!
This is a visualization of Prox b, or more precisely Proxima Centauri b, a probably earth-like planet around Proxima Centauri, the nearest known star after the sun.
A pass in a mountainous region in the moderate but still cold parts of the tidally locked planet near the terminator: The high plain is populated by strange immobile lifeforms, neither animals nor plants. Their frisbee-like body seems to stuck in the soil, pointing at the always stationary sun. They are bioluminescent: For some unknown reason they are converting infrared light in visible red wavelengths and glowing in a cold reddish light.
WOw, i very interesting it, just like a alien-planet landscape. But i must ask you, how can you add the "moon" into the render ? ;D
An Europa-like ice-moon orbiting a Neptune-like gas giant in a young solar system with a distant type A main sequence host star.
The gravitational pull of the gas giant breaks the thick ice crust of the moon, forming huge cliffs.
Wow, beautiful. One of your best efforts yet. If only Chesley Bonestell could see this.
Great render indeed!
Thank you! "I'll do my best..." :)
Nice.
Oh, this is a very nice one!
Convincing look of the described environment :)
A habitable Earth-like planet rises, seen from one of its two moons.
Very nice! :)
Yes, another good one. Would you consider adding a faint patchwork of lights (cities or other large artificial structures) to the dark side of the habitable world? (Or perhaps it isn't that advanced yet.)
I thought about adding technical structures in some of my renders, but I decided against it. At the moment I want to show rather "virgin" worlds, without influence of humans (or intelligent beings in general). Maybe later on.
Understood. Keep up the great work.
Nice render :)
In these worldwide corona-crisis times, one has time at home to deal with Terragen:
I've been playing around with big displacements and this is what came out of it:
A large, eroded sandstone mountain range on an habitable moon of a gas giant. Through gaps in the cloud cover you can see the strange vegetation in the valley.
I had to make some corrections with Pixelmator on the final render, since some rendering artifacts were left over because of the "exaggerated" displacements.
Reminds me of Tatooine, the desert planet from Star Wars. This one, however, has more water and a luminescent vegetation.
Very nice worlds!
A new render of my "Red Worlds - Series":
This is an imaginary, desert-like landscape on GJ 1061 c, the second planet of the red dwarf star GJ 1061, about 12 light years away from earth.
Planet c is a "Super-Earth", i.e. it is slightly heavier and larger than the Earth, thus has a slightly higher gravity and probably a denser atmosphere (if it has one). The planet moves at the inner edge of the habitable zone around its host star and receives about one third more radiation than the Earth from the Sun, mainly infrared light. In the visible part of the spectrum, however, it is much dimmer on this planet than on Earth. On a cloudless day in areas close to the terminator (like on my render) it will be about as bright for humans as on earth shortly after sunset. Thereby the red dwarf appears about 5 times bigger in the sky than the sun from earth. It is unpleasant to stare directly into the big sun disk, but not as dangerous as on earth. The landscape is bathed in a distinct yellow-red light. In the shining sun disk you can faintly see some big sunspots.
GJ 1061 c always turns the same side to its sun. Due to the strongly warmed day side and the cold night side of the planet, heavy winds are constantly blowing in areas close to the terminator.
I tried to capture such a scene of an upcoming storm in my render. Bioluminescent life forms partially cover the ground like a carpet.
The image is a composition of three different renders and some post-processing until I could recreate roughly the (light) conditions I had in mind.
A new Space Art render:
A hypothetical habitable planet moving on a stable but irregular orbit around two pairs of suns. The year (and the seasons) are not always the same, because the orbit has a certain random character, caused by the different gravitational forces of the two pairs of Suns. The planet is subject to extreme climatic variations, from ice ages to long periods of drought, depending on where it is on its orbit around the suns.
Here again a piece of space art. A little science and a little fiction:
Titanus Secundus:
A caprice of nature:
A far away moon which physical parameters are within 10% the same as Titan, biggest moon of Saturn.
This moon is orbiting not a gas giant like Jupiter or Saturn, but an ice giant like Uranus or Neptune.
After a brief methane rain shower the sky is clearing up, revealing for a moment the hardly visible silhouette of the host planet, before the hydrocarbon clouds are covering the sky again.
The reddish dust that rains down from the sky and covers almost the entire surface of this region like snow are Tholins: dusty hydrocarbon compounds that are created high up in the atmosphere, in the interaction of solar radiation and atmospheric components. Among other things, they are regarded as precursors of life.
Terragen 4 and Pixelmator
Another excellent, imaginative image. Your descriptions really show how much research and thought goes into each one. Took me a while to find the gas giant, but it's perfect, almost not-there. Keep up the great work.
Charon Rising:
A hypothetical landscape on Pluto, freely interpreted according to the data of the "Horizon" probe.
The title "Charon Rising" is actually misleading: Since both dwarf planets are in tidally locked or "bounded" rotation with each other, Charon will never rise further from Pluto than visible in the image (at exactly this observed place on Pluto's surface!) for all eternity.
By the way, the sun is still depicted too large, it would be nothing else than the brightest star in Pluto's sky, no longer perceptible as a disk for the naked eye but about 300 times brighter than the full moon. So I took the artistic freedom to depict the sun in a more recognizable way.
Looks nice.
Oh Boy! Great one! :)
I am seeing some banding in your night sky, which I do not mind so much as it adds to the eeriness of the image, but is that an after-edit effect? What was your AA on that one?
Yes, in a way it is: The "banding" is a direct consequence of reducing the original image to a "web-friendly" low-resolution ipg file. The original is a smooth, high-resolution 12.4 MB TIFF file without any "banding". The render has an AA of 6.
Very nice and cinematic!! Cool!!
That looks pretty darn nice!
Very nice series!
Thank you folks! Here's another one:
A young earth-like planet in its early Proterozoic era, like the earth some 2.5 billion years ago.
This planet orbits the larger partner of a double star system: a young, sunlike star and a more distant red dwarf.
A panoramic view of a vast plateau, eroded by wind and rain.The young sun burns hot from an almost lavender colored sky. The red dwarf star is visible as a reddish bright star even during the day.
An oxygen-enriched atmosphere is developing trough the evolution and ,,explosion" of early lifeforms capable of photosynthesis, similar to cyanobacterias and algae on earth: sign of a convergent evolution.
The shallow ponds are created by rain, mostly drying out and filling again in irregular intervals. They are full of this lifeforms, encouraged by this environmental conditions to leave the water, so as the heavy tides caused by the big moon do at the shores of the primordial oceans. Nevertheless it takes another 2 billion years for lifeforms to permanently conquer the land masses of this planet...
Rendered in Terragen 4.4; Reworked with Pixelmator
From my archives:
Meet Hellhouse:
A primordial rocky Super-Earth in a close, tidally locked orbit around a young Red Dwarf. Compared with this planet, Venus is a paradise! A dense hydrogen- and helium-enriched and high-pressured atmosphere refracts, scatters and absorbs most of the light of the Red Dwarf.
Here, at the substellar point, the atmosphere and the surface are overheated by the star's radiation and unpredictably flare-eruptions. The landscape is mostly melted, a constant and chaotic lava flow, interrupted by some rocky peaks also on the verge of melting. This lava is very viscous, almost ,,solid", due the atmospheric pressure and the high gravity of this Super-Earth. So the landscape is slowly but permanently changing its aspect. The atmosphere under the substellar point is a constant hurricane-like storm. Sooner or later (in geological terms) the dense atmosphere will mostly dissipate due the star's radiation and maybe leave behind a more ,,earth-like" planet.
A completely hypothetical but plausible view of a landscape in the twilight zone of "TRAPPIST-1 e", one of seven really existing planets around a faint red dwarf star, about 40 light years away from Earth. The planet is moving in the habitable zone around its star. If the Earth-like rocky planet has an atmosphere and water, it could harbor life. TRAPPIST-1 e orbits its host star in bounded rotation, i.e. it always shows the same side to its sun. Thus a local "day" is as long as a local "year". There is actually only a hot day side and a cold night side, which never change.
The picture shows us the "moderate" zone around the Terminator, the day and night border. Nevertheless there are probably strong winds here, which make life more difficult. The rocky ground is covered by a (hypothetical) bioluminescent life form, similar to our lichens. Cloud formations constantly move across the sky, shone by the dim reddish light of the red dwarf just behind us on the horizon. In the already dark starry sky two more planets of the system are visible: TRAPPIST-1 f and g.
Terragen 4.4.44 and Pixelmator Pro 1.71
"A panoramic view of an upcoming thunderstorm on a habitable exomoon" has a rather Roger Dean feel to it.
:-)
In the Rainbow Nebula:
Two different siblings: In the early days of this solar system, these two dwarf planets captured each other and since then have been gravitationally bound and orbiting around each other and together around their parent star.
Ridged moon by RichTwo (Thanks!), some color changes.
Some more varied terrain features - larger and higher plus flattened areas would add interest, but the texturing is quite nice. And you are more than welcome!
Dito. Some Hills would be nice. But anyway good!
Version 2:
Some adjustments of displacements (new/changed), some minor color corrections. The impression of the "Great Vastness" should be preserved as far as possible.
A hypothetical primeval and hostile "Super Venus": A planet like Venus, only bigger and more massive.Temperatures above 500° (Celsius), continuous volcanic activity, a toxic atmosphere with over 200 atmospheres of pressure and more than twice the Earth's gravitational pull make this planet a alien "Dante's Inferno". This planet orbits a close binary star system, whose components are visible as pale disks in this dense atmosphere.
That really looks inhospitable. Great render. One thing I would do is vary the stone/rock texture a bit more, with areas of really blackened stone and areas where soot/dust covers them. You can try using the warp by normal feature in an added color to get tiny differences in stone texture, setting it to 1 or minus 1.
A hypothetical landscape on TRAPPIST-1 f, the fifth planet of the TRAPPIST-1 system, about 40 light-years from Earth.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TRAPPIST-1 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TRAPPIST-1)
According to recent research, the planet is slightly larger and slightly more massive than Earth and still lies within the star's habitable zone. This cold world receives only slightly more than one-third as much radiation from its sun as Earth, predominantly in the red and infrared regions of the spectrum. The faint visible light has a distinct red cast. Should this planet have an atmosphere, larger water deposits are also possible, increasing the likelihood of some form of life.
The unspectacular image shows a canyon-like and cold, partly snow-covered mountain region at the everlasting day/night border of this world. The sedimentary layers of the mountains may contain fossils of earlier life forms. After one of the rather rare flare eruptions of the host star slightly above the horizon, the local life forms have discharged the excess of UV and X-ray radiation in the form of bioluminescence.
Just at the horizon the so far outermost planets of the system are visible in the dark sky. At this time, planet g appears about the size of the Moon in Earth's sky, planet h about a quarter of that. In a few hours planet g will transit (occult) planet h.
Quote from: raymoh on April 08, 2019, 03:09:50 PMA new render of my "Red Worlds"-series:
[attach=1]
An imaginary view of the surface of Barnard's Star b, the nearest exoplanet orbiting a single star.
===============
This is a fantastic image. Wow!!!
This is some really great work. My favorite would have to be water world. I like the colors.
Two new renders of my "Red Worlds" series: As the name suggests, I portray planets orbiting red dwarfs here. Due to this limitation, the images sometimes show certain similarities, which at first sight seem "boring" when looking at them. I try to counter this with detailed representations.
A real solar system at a distance of 12.5 light years in the constellation Aries. At least 2 planets orbit a faint, small red dwarf.
The system is with about 8 billion years much older than our solar system.
For those interested and curious:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teegarden%27s_Star (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teegarden's_Star)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teegarden%27s_Star_b (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teegarden's_Star_b)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teegarden%27s_Star_c (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teegarden's_Star_c)
https://www.aanda.org/articles/aa/pdf/2019/07/aa35460-19.pdf (https://www.aanda.org/articles/aa/pdf/2019/07/aa35460-19.pdf)
Facts:
The planets b and c both move in the habitable zone and receive slightly more (b: 115%) and significantly less (c: 37%) radiation from their faint parent star, mainly infrared radiation. Due to the lack of visible light, the surface of both planets is bathed in a dim yellow-reddish twilight. similar to just after sunset on Earth. However, the bright disk of the parent star is considerably larger as seen from both planets than the Sun is from Earth (b: 4.5x, c: 2.5x). You can look into it, but it quickly becomes uncomfortable. If both planets have an atmosphere, water and/or ice could also be present. Both planets are most likely in bound rotation, that means they always show the same side to their parent star, like the moon to the earth.The sun is always at the same place in the sky. There is no "day" and no "night", only a day side and a night side. This is not favorable for the development of life, but it is not impossible.
Speculations:
I assume that the atmospheres and the water of the two planets have already thinned out considerably after 8 billion years, not least due to the radiation of the nearby parent star. There is hardly any cloud formation anymore. Tectonic activity has practically ceased and most of the mountains have been eroded over time by wind and water. On planet b the little water of the dayside is still present in the form of many small shallow ponds. Planet c probably has more water, but is already partially iced over. In the shallow ponds of planet b and the ice-free zones of planet c there may still be lower forms of life: local bacteria, algae and fungi. Should the two planets once have harbored higher life, it has probably already become extinct within the last 8 billion years.
Of course, everything can also be completely different....
To the attention:
In the renders the size proportions of the solar disk and the planets visible in the sky (b from c and c from b) are correct in relation to the image area.
Loving all these renders. I can imagine the fly by animations of these landscapes..
Verry impressive. The look of the last one I like most but I like the slightly visible plasma of the sun on the render before too.
An older, but newly edited render:
The scene is totally fictitious, except for the name "Chara". Chara is a nearby, sun-like G-type star in the constellation of Canis Venatici, 27.5 light-years away from the Sun. Because of its properties it is a "solar analog" star.
Belated thanks to all file sharers who contributed to this image.
Could be the cover of a Sifi-book or comic. :) Great!
"Rock Rose Garden": A vast marshland on the Earth-like world "Zavijava IV": Strangely eroded rock formations resemble open rose petals. The planet is in its mid-Proterozoic: first land plants increase the oxygen concentration of the atmosphere. Two moons provide complex tides. However, the evolution of Zavijava IV is unlikely to continue, because its sun, Beta Virginis (Zavijava) will already leave the main sequence in a few hundred million years and evolve into a red giant and will probably destroy most of the already existing life on its planets.
Beta Virginis, an F9 main sequence star at a distance of 35.7 light years is more massive, larger, hotter and more luminous than our Sun. It is about 3 billion years old and at the end of its dwell time on the main sequence.
Until today no concrete evidence for a planetary system has been found around Beta Virginis. However, the presence of (three) gas giants is discussed.
I took the liberty to assume a planetary system around Beta Virginis: Complex and chaotic processes during the early phase of the formation of this system changed the planetary orbits partly drastically, so that the planets are not located where one would search for them from Earth...
Cool! I especially like the contexts you always describe with your renders.
Love those rock shapes!
A reinterpretation of my "Waterworld II" scene:
This is a Hycean world (Hydrogen + Ocean = Hycean).
Hycean worlds are still hypothetical, but quite possible extreme worlds that could harbor life:
Oversized, hot Super-Earths or Mini-Neptunes with hydrogen-enriched high-pressure atmospheres and higher gravity than Earth. They have a planet-wide ocean, sometimes probably hundreds of kilometers deep, but no land masses of any kind.
Life here would probably take place on the surface and down to a depth of several kilometers. The bottom of this planet-spanning ocean is an extreme place that cannot be recreated in any laboratory....
My hypothetical surface of such a Hycean world shows a continent-sized life form, similar to a mixture of an earthly slime mold and a jellyfish. It floats on the surface and is connected with innumerable filaments, which reach also into several kilometers of depth. It feeds on the one hand by a form of local photosynthesis, but also lives "predatorily" by capturing and digesting microorganisms.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hycean_planet
Many thanks to Dune for his "Translucent Waves Mockup" clip, which I used here and whose foam I tried to "convert" to a living creature....
goodness... I didn't think that image could be any more dramatic.. wow !
I heard about these planets in the last weeks too, and it is believed that life forms there are more likely than initially assumed.
Great render!
Great effect. I wouldn't want to swim there :P
Impressive series of worlds...... stunning atmospherics and lighting ! Stunning work !
Eris is the second largest dwarf planet after Pluto. Almost as large as Pluto but somewhat more massive, it orbits the Sun in a highly elliptical orbit. On average it is more than 70 percent farther away from the sun than Pluto, and accordingly even colder. Eris probably consists mostly of rocky material, but its surface appears very bright, almost white, due to various types of ice and snow (water, nitrogen, carbon dioxide, methane, and other hydrocarbons). In "summer", at Eris' closest approach to the sun, various frozen components of the surface evaporate or sublime and form a temporary "atmosphere". Eris itself has a small moon, not quite as large as the asteroid Ceres.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eris_(dwarf_planet)
My imaginary render shows this "summer" on Eris. The sun is the brightest star in an otherwise slightly hazy starry sky, but it is still about 300 times brighter than at full moon on Earth.
Dysnomia, the small moon is close to the horizon and is illuminated by the bright Eris also on its night side.
A very austere atmosphere. I find it very successful!
A view from a dusty, about Mars-sized imaginary desert moon to Kepler-277c, or "Behemoth" as I have named the planet. Behemoth is the lower mass companion of two "Mega Earths" in a solar system over 3000 light years away.
Mega-Earth (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mega-Earth)
Kepler-277c (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kepler-277c)
A huge rocky planet, only slightly smaller than Neptune, but with 2/3 the mass of Saturn. Hellish conditions prevail on the surface: Temperatures like on Venus, a gravity almost 6 times higher than on Earth and a gigantic air pressure (if an atmosphere exists at all).
I took the artistic liberty to depict Behemoth with a double ring system of two asteroids broken apart. Very likely it will not be stable for a long time and the debris will fall on the planet sooner or later. In the sky there is another imaginary moon of the giant planet.
Thanks to Kadri for his "Basic Ring Planet Example".
Nice images.
I like "Summer on Eris.png" the most.
Two more snapshots of my imaginary primeval planet "Zavijava IV", which could orbit the star Beta Virginis.
"Skyscraper Range":
Remnants of an ancient, eroded coastal mountain range. In the foreground an extensive mudflat in which algae-like organisms grow and are currently "blooming". A large pond has formed in an old meteorite crater.
In a few hundred million years, when the system's sun begins to turn into a red giant, life on this planet will again gradually disappear. What remains is a hot, atmosphereless Mercury-like desert world.
"The Great Central Desert" :
The interior of Zavijava IV's only (super) continent is characterized by a gigantic stone and sand desert. With daytime temperatures of over 60° Celsius and nighttime temperatures that can drop below freezing, even the largest rock formations break apart over time.
Life exists on this world until now only in coastal regions, where mountains provide moisture, but at the same time these coastal mountain ranges prevent clouds and rain from reaching the interior of the continent.
Amazing work!
Perusing thru..lots of neat work.
Love that Eris shot. Love the atmosphere lighting.
Ringworld
A hypothetical primordial Earth-like exoplanet in the far reaches of the universe:
Stromatolite-like formations begin to enrich the atmosphere with oxygen. As a result, iron begins to oxidize and stain the shallow seas.
This world is slightly larger and more massive than Earth, a "super-Earth." It has no moon, but a thin ring of smaller asteroids left over from the formation of the planet. The orbits of these asteroids have meanwhile aligned and stabilized. Nevertheless (geologically seen) impacts occur more often than on Earth. The bigger ones can have effects on the whole planet. The planet is now 3 billion years old, but life has not yet progressed beyond the stage of simple life forms. Larger asteroid impacts from the ring keep preventing life forms from evolving.
The host star is also somewhat larger, more massive, hotter and also brighter than the sun. In another 3 billion years, it will leave the main sequence and evolve into a red giant, gradually destroying most of its planets or at least burning them to ash.
Our hypothetical world will hardly ever develop higher life forms under these circumstances.
Made on a mac with Terragen 4.5.71 and Pixelmator
Thanks to Balletdude for his "Terrain from Math nodes"
Very alieny - if that is a word.
Great! I really like your explanation too, makes it 'real', so to say.
All your worlds are just outstanding and the only thing I can do right now is try to get my jaw back in its sockets ! Amazing lighting and atmospherics !
Once again Titan, the largest moon of the planet Saturn:
We see a scene which is probably rare (if at all possible?). Titan's strong high-altitude winds have ripped open the usually thick cloud layer and we catch a glimpse of Saturn through the hazy nitrogen/methane atmosphere, which appears about 10 times larger than Earth's moon. Although the sun is shining for the moment, it remains rather dim to our eyes.
We are standing on the shore of a still nameless methane lake (a "lacus"): It is practically windless, the temperature is around -180° C, the atmospheric pressure is 1.5 times as strong as on Earth, with a gravity about equal to that of the moon. The strange stones, boulders and pebbles are not made of silicate rock, but of ice, it is extremely hard frozen water. The ground is partially covered by reddish-brown ,,Tholins", complex organic compounds, raining down from the atmosphere.
Titan is actually also an "icy moon" like other large moons of the outer planets, with the difference that it has a dense atmosphere.
looks like a better, sharper version of the final pictures sent back by the Titan probe a few years ago.
A landscape shaped by wind, rain and ice on Zavijava IV, my imaginary earth-like planet that could orbit Beta Virginis. We are at the end of a planetary cold stage. Due to the climatic conditions that prevailed during this cold stage, large amounts of iron ore-bearing rock were oxidized and eroded, creating the "Redlands". The resulting landscape is comparable to cold dry valleys on Earth. Despite sometimes many clouds, hardly any precipitation falls. The existing snow remains are already several years old.
Very nice terrain, it breathes 'alien' but also has some familiarity to our globe. Nice!
Another piece of Astro Art:
A view of the exoplanet Teegarden's Star b. With an Earth Similarity Index (ESI) of 0.95 it is one of the theoretically most Earth-like exoplanets up to now, with emphasis on "theoretically". The ESI is a value, which is determined among other things also by model calculations. If the models are not correct, the "Earth similarity" is gone. Thus, it is not yet possible to determine beyond doubt the absence or presence of a "life-supporting" atmosphere.
Here, Teegarden's Star b is "Earth-like" and has developed life. This life could well be twice as old as life on Earth, since the parent star, Teegarden's Star, an ultra-cool small red dwarf, is about 8 billion years old. The vegetation is very dark in color to effectively absorb the star's predominantly infrared radiation and use it for photochemical processes. There are also bioluminescent life forms that have learned to respond to the now rare bursts of UV-radiation from Teegarden's Star and process the excess radiation. The visible light is very faint and distinctly yellow-orange in color. To our eyes, it is only about as bright as in a well-lit living room, even though the sun is in an almost cloudless sky. We also see Teegarden's Star c in the sky, the neighboring world. Now, in the phase of closest approach, it is about half the size of the moon as seen from Earth.
Very nice, I always like your 'encyclopedia-like' descriptions.
The artistic representation of a P-type planetary system around two sun-like binary stars. In a P-type system, the planets do not orbit around one of the two binary stars, but around the common center of gravity of the entire system. Such double-star planetary systems are usually more stable than an S-type system, in which planets orbit around one of the two stars, or each of the two stars has its own planetary system.
Here, a large Jupiter-like gas giant orbits its two parent stars at a great distance. The two small moons visible in the image also orbit around their common center of gravity and both in turn orbit around the gas giant with other moons.
The nebulae is a nice enhancing feature of your night skies. And the lighting is great too.
I agree, a very nice impression!
Looks good so far.
Maybe it is better to give the moons a slightly different color?
This way it looks somehow artificial.
STORMLORD