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| A warm, earthlike planet orbiting a red dwarf star. Mendez's software lets astronomers enter the data they know about a planet and then constructs a vision of what it might look like |
- First software that 'renders' 3D worlds based on what we know
- Draws worlds based on their size, chemistry and distance from star
- Can render our Earth from historical data
Astrobiologist Abel Mendez of the
University of Puerto Rico at Arecibo has designed a software package
that can draw real-looking worlds based on the scientific data we receive from space telescopes - and says Nasa gets it wrong.
Mendez's
software package draws planets based on their size, distance from their
parent star and chemistry - and can create 3D images that correspond to
the data.
The imagery
sent out when missions such as Nasa's Kepler telescope find 'exoplanets'
- planets outside our solar system - is still imagined by artists.
Mendez claims that his approach is more scientific. |
| A hot exoplanet about the size of Mars |
The Scientific Exoplanets Rendereris
is designed to generate 'photo-real' images of other planets - and
'draws' its reconstructions using data such as chemicals detected by
space telescopes and their size and surface temperature.
Unlike 'artists reconstructions', it's all done mathematically.
Mendez
said of Nasa's reconstruction of Kepler 22-b, 'I think that the Nasa
image got the color right but I don’t expect clouds like that. It
probably will be more featureless like Uranus or Neptune and not so good
for a press release.'
Mendez's
software is specially designed to reconstruct Earth-like exoplanets,
either rocky or ocean in nature, but it is also able to generate visuals
for gas giants and stars.
It includes the reconstruction of realistic clouds and weather effects.  |
| A small, cold planet as recreated by Mendez's software. He says that Nasa's imaginings of planets may not always be accurate |
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| A warm world larger than our Earth. Unlike 'artist's renderings' of
planets, Mendez's software 'creates worlds' based on available scientific information |
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| Earth rendered 240 million years ago - when the continents were still gathered together into the 'supercontinent' named Pangaea |
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