Anniversary

Year

2024-2025

Artist

Hoang Nguyen

University

University of Maryland

Major

Astronomy

Title

Anniversary

Tags

Goddess

Asteroid

Overall Mission

Genre/Medium

digital illustration

Category

digital still

Current Location

Digital Only

Description

Remembering the affection that many people had for the Mars rovers Spirit and Opportunity, I wondered if, by depicting Psyche in a humanoid form, I could evoke sympathy for a spacecraft. It happened to be near the first anniversary of Psyche’s launch, so in my piece I’ve thrown a somewhat lonely little birthday party for the beloved child.

It’s my instinct to lean Baroque, but I felt it was necessary for the scene to be set solidly in the 21st century. These sort of conflicting ideas were hard to resolve, and I think my attempt to do that is what pushed the image in the direction of, say, a still life in a book of hide-and-seek puzzles you might’ve had as a kid, or maybe a secret room in a dream you’ve had and since forgotten.

I draped the room in dark cloth to set the scene with the loneliness of the journey and the quiet of empty space. There is a bit of a liminal feel to it, which is fitting as the spacecraft is currently cruising through interplanetary space, very literally in between worlds. There are some souvenirs from home; there’s the miniature Falcon Heavy on the dresser, a twist on the ship in a bottle, and a picture of Earth as Psyche would have seen it during those first hundred days spent in orbit—perhaps the chest of drawers will fill up with more things collected along the way. A reminder of the destination—the asteroid which might teach us about the childhoods of our terrestrial planets—hangs in the back of the image as Psyche begins to unveil models of Earth and Mars.

We’re a long way from home and a long way from the end, but in the meantime we can celebrate the accomplishment of having gotten here.

Artwork Link

https://psyche.ssl.berkeley.edu/gallery/anniversary/