Earth Day Poster 2020 - Combining Art and Science

Hi, my name is Jenny Mottar, and I’m the Art Director for NASA Science. For many years, I have been creating the Earth Day posters for NASA, and each year I try to focus on a new perspective. Whether it’s the 2017 Total Solar Eclipse, the Earth as the shore of the cosmic ocean, or discovering our roots in the depths of astrobiology, I attempt to illustrate our home, our place in the universe, from the unique vantage point of NASA. This year, being the 50th anniversary of Earth Day, I wanted to do something really special. But first I’m going talk about my inspiration.

00:42 - Last year, I read a book about trees that really inspired me. We see trees all around us every day, but I never imagined how much we have in common. For instance, if you hold a stethoscope to the trunk of a hardwood tree, you can hear its heartbeat, as water and nutrients move through its system. And most astonishing is the relationship that trees have with one fungi. Tree roots attach to fungi underground, which not only allow them access to more water and nutrients, but enable them to communicate with each other for miles.

01:13 - In 2018, Swiss scientists discovered voltage based signals in these networks, similar to our nervous system. These signals allow trees to send warnings of drought, disease or insect attacks to neighboring trees. It’s really quite amazing. So, this was all very inspiring, but how could I relate it to NASA’s unique perspective? I was talking to a colleague one day, and he said: “A river delta looks a lot like a tree from space”. And that was a light bolt for me. From there, I started doing more research and found this great metaphors my James Hutton, the father of modern geology. He described Earth as a super organism, comparing the water cycle to the human circulatory system.

01:50 - Basically, the heart pumping blood through our veins. This brought it full circle for me. A tree as a river delta, with the Earth’s metaphorical hearth pumping water through it’s natural circulation system. Three metaphors in one composition. So, back to wanting to do something really special. Since it’s the 50th anniversary, I wanted to try something that I’d never done before - to paint the Earth Day poster. I’ve been a painter since I was a kid, and it’s what led me to study art and design in college.

02:21 - I begin by drawing the delta tree on a 15 by 30 inch piece of watercolor paper. I found a bunch of satellite images and started to paint, mostly making up details as I went along. The final artwork made for an interesting illustration, but for me, something was missing. The make it up as I go approach didn’t quite capture the NASA aspect that I’d hoped for. So, I went back to the digital drawing board, and started compositing the detail with actual real science data, another first for me.

02:51 - I mostly pulled imagery from the Landsat series of missions which NASA operates in conjunction with the United States Geological Survey. My main resource for the delta was taken from my all time favorite Earth as Art image, the Lena Delta in Siberia. But a variety of other images were also used in the composition. From a desert in southern California, to the lakes of western Mongolia, to the very tip of South America, imagery from all over the world adds detail to this composited illustration. Can you find these images, along with the hidden animals in the river delta? To download the 2020 Earth Day poster, along with these activities, and posters from past years, visit science.nasa.gov.

03:34 - Thanks for listening, and remember that we are all part of the super organism that is Earth. .