New Horizons and Pluto Flyby Originally painted June and July 2015

Post coming soon!  (I’m only a year late!)

Credit: NASA, SwRI, JHU APL, Alex Parker, Björn Jónsson

Hubble’s 25th Anniversary

Originally painted April 23, 2015

On April 24, 1990, the Hubble Space Telescope was launched to orbit aboard Space Shuttle Discovery during the STS-31 mission. Hubble’s almost as old as I am!

Hubble is known for taking beautiful, awe-inspiring photos of all sorts of astronomical objects, including galaxies, nebulae, planets, stars, and more. But Hubble’s vision wasn’t always so sharp! Scientists discovered in the months after Hubble’s first photos that there was a problem with the mirror. A slight distortion was making the images blurry, and a plan was made to correct it. 

In December of 1993, during the first Hubble servicing mission, STS-61, astronauts performed five back-to-back spacewalks to install the Corrective Optics Space Telescope Axial Replacement (COSTAR) and the Wide Field and Planetary Camera 2 (WFPC2), along with other upgrades. These devices were designed to compensate for the primary mirror's flaw.

Sixteen years later, Hubble received its fourth and final servicing mission during the STS-125 mission in May, 2009. Hubble continues to take photos today and will hopefully continue doing so for many years!

In October of 2014, I did Messier object nails, so I had some experience in painting nebulae and galaxies and the like.

Left to right: Globular cluster M13, Swan Nebula M17, Sombrero Galaxy M104, Dumbbell Nebula M27, Crab Nebula M1, Pillars of Creation/Eagle Nebula M16, Orion Nebula M42, Whirlpool Galaxy M51, Ring Nebula M57, and Pleiades M45.

Most of the objects I painted were imaged by Hubble, so I decided to paint all new photos for my 25th anniversary nails. I’ll post the pictures again so they’re easier to refer to! All the Hubble photographs I used for these designs are at the end of this entry (after a cut) in the order they appear on my nails .

Left Hand

Thumb: Hubble itself! I didn’t have a silver shiny enough to match Hubble’s  specially-coated stainless steel foil, so I just cut a small piece of aluminum foil! At first I tried to give it depth with a black Sharpie. It looked terrible, so I rubbed it off, and it left a little texture behind that I don’t mind! The 25 references Hubble’s anniversary. Behind Hubble is a quick Earth and atmosphere.

Pointer: Clownface (or Eskimo) Nebula. It’s easy to see where this planetary nebula gets its name! The filaments radiating out from the central star resemble the hood of a parka! I just sponged on some oranges and whites and reds. Unfortunately, the glare on this nail is right on top of the red nose.

Middle: Jupiter close-up. The description on hubblesite.org for this photo cracks me up: “In what's beginning to look like a case of planetary measles, a third red spot has appeared alongside its cousins.” Ha! Jupiter is a stormy place. It’s Great Red Spot has been around at least 200 years so far; maybe even 400! It has changed in size over the years, shrinking recently by 1,000km per year (yeah, it’s HUGE), and eventually it will disappear. How weird to think of kids learning about Jupiter as the planet that USED to have a Great Red Spot!

Ring: Arp 273 galaxies. Gravity has distorted these interacting galaxies into a rose shape. The smaller galaxy likely passed through the larger one! This photo was released for Hubble’s 21st birthday. 

Pinky: Portion of Cynus Loop. Supernova remnants are among the most beautiful objects in the night sky! The nebula is six times the width of the full moon from Earth’s point of view. The visual component of the Cygnus Loop is called the Veil Nebula collectively, and there are many different sections. I chose a particularly delicate looking section of the blast wave! 

Right hand

Thumb: portion of the Carina Nebula’s Mystic Mountain. Honestly, when I started painting this nail, I didn’t realize the photo I was looking at was cropped at first and planned out the sizing of the features wrong. Oh well. This image was released for Hubble’s 20th anniversary. Young, hot stars launch streams of ionized gas in all directions, shaping the pillar- and mountain-like structures. The colors correspond to the glows of different gases.

Pointer: Stephan’s Quintet. This image was released in 2009 after the final servicing mission in a set of the first images taken with Hubble’s new Wide Field Camera 3. Of the five in the quintet, only four are actually interacting. The upper left galaxy is much closer to Earth than the others.

Middle: Hodge 301 in the Tarantula Nebula. Hodge 301 is the most active starburst region in the nearby universe, meaning that it contains many old stars at the ends of their lives. When giant old stars run out of gas, they go supernova and explode! All of the high-speed material that’s blasted out plows into the Tarantula Nebula, compressing and shaping the dust and gas into billowy filaments. Too bad this nail turned out a little too Lisa Frank. I actually removed this design and replaced it with Hubble’s 25th anniversary photo when it was released, but I forgot to take a picture. 

Ring: Hourglass Nebula. I love this planetary nebula because it has a really creepy eye shape in the middle. The informational release that goes along with this image says that the intricate etching patterns in the hourglass walls are not entirely understood. Hubble’s detailed photos will help astronomers determine how planetary nebulae come to exist in these shapes even though the red giants/star clouds they originate from are round.

Pinky: Butterfly (or Bug) Nebula. The “wings” of this butterfly are actually jets of super hot, glowing gas traveling at 600,000 miles per hour. A cloud of dust constricts the star in the center, squeezing it so that its outflow can only go perpendicular to the ring. Hence, wings. Learn more about the shape and history of this nebula here!

Credit: NASA

More photos after the jump!

NASA Social and SpaceX CRS-6 Launch

Originally painted April 10, 2015

Last month I had the crazy cool opportunity to attend a NASA Social at the Kennedy Space Center for the launch of SpaceX’s sixth cargo resupply mission to the International Space Station. The two-day event (well, three-day event after a scrubbed launch) brought together space and space flight fans from all over the country. We were invited to tour parts of the center that are not accessible to the public, learn about NASA’s progress on Orion and the SLS rocket, meet all sorts of NASA and SpaceX employees, visit the Falcon 9 and Dragon on the launch pad only hours before liftoff, and, of course, view the launch from a spectacular location less than three miles from the pad. 

One of the iconic buildings at KSC is the Vehicle Assembly Building, or VAB. This historic structure was built in 1966 during the height of the Space Race and has seen thousands and thousands of employees pass through its giant doors (the largest in the world) through many eras of the space program. One of the highlights of our first day was getting to go inside the VAB, walk from one end to the other (it takes several minutes!), and take the elevator to the sixteenth floor catwalk. Amazingly, even standing that high within the structure, it still feels like there’s whole a skyscraper above you! You look up and you see ever more catwalks criss-crossing all the way up to the ceiling. Labels on the wall mark the heights of the Space Shuttle, Saturn V, and SLS. I can’t imagine what it looks like from the top level, 526 feet up. The VAB dominates the horizon, even from miles away.

Credit: NASA/Kim Shiflett

Floor to ceiling in the VAB! Red circle on the ground is where a Saturn V would stand. Credit: Kristen Fredriksen

Obviously, the whole experience was a great excuse to do some more space nails. I chose the VAB for my “NASA hand”. Next to the VAB is Launch Complex 39′s Launch Control Center, where all manned American launches have been supervised and conducted. Painting these on my nails wasn’t particularly easy. I didn’t do a perfect job and the VAB is kind of lopsided, but I think it’s recognizable, at least! The NASA employees at the press site thought so, anyway, and that’s good enough for me! I painted the sky first, then added the VAB. I then added some grass, sidewalks and roads, and tiny attempts at palm trees. Lastly, I added some clouds to make the sky more interesting.

For the sky, I did a blue gradient to make it a little more realistic. Gradients involve sponges, hence the messy fingers!

On my thumb, I painted the NASA ‘meatball’ insignia. Fun fact: NASA has used two official logos over the years. The current blue, white, and red insignia I painted on my thumb nicknamed the ‘meatball’ was used from 1959 to 1975, and 1992 to present. The logo used from 1975 to 1992 came after NASA wanted a modern, stylish logo, and so emerged the ‘worm’. 

Anyway, to get the little meatball on my thumb, I first painted it on wax paper. I originally thought I’d have to cheat and print the logo and just glue it on with clear nail polish because it was so small. With a couple of toothpicks, though, I was able to get the letters into recognizable form. I actually printed a tiny black and white insignia and taped it behind the wax paper to trace and use as a guide, much like I did with my Soyuz nails. I painted the letters, stars, and red vector on the wax paper above my cheat sheet, then slathered it with a good helping of clear nail polish so it’d be easier to peel up later. Then, in another spot, I painted a blue circle on which to put the rest of the logo. I used the same black and white printed logo to get the size of the circle right. After both dried, I simply peeled up the letters/stars/vector and placed it on top of the blue planet shape, gluing with clear nail polish. I let that whole thing dry, then peeled up the blue and put that on my thumb. Voila! Meatball.

Another part of the NASA Social experience was learning about SpaceX, their operations at KSC, the science and supplies aboard the cargo Dragon, and their second real attempt at landing the Falcon rocket’s first stage on a barge... excuse me, autonomous spaceport drone ship! SpaceX hopes to eventually fully reuse launch vehicles, and the barge landing is a crucial step toward achieving that goal. 

On my thumb, I’ve got the drone ship, on the pointer is the first stage, and the SpaceX logo crosses the other three fingers. I painted the drone ship and first stage on wax paper first using toothpicks and tiny brushes. For the background, I wanted to make it clear the barge was in the ocean, so I painted a sky on my pointer. I traced the SpaceX logo on wax paper, making sure I knew ahead of time which letters would go on each nail. Below, you can see my barge nail (blurry, sorry) at the launch pad!

Hey Elon, I brought the barge to you!

The launch was a total success, and the VIP view from the ITL causeway less than three miles away was great! The reusable first stage didn’t land perfectly, though, and unfortunately ended in a fiery explosion. Hey, there’s always next time!

Credit: SpaceX

After the launch, the NASA Social attendees were invited to attend the post-launch/landing news conference. Dan Hartman, the deputy International Space Station Program Manager for NASA's Johnson Space Center, and Hans Koenigsmann, SpaceX’s vice president of Mission Assurance, discussed the launch, landing, and future launches and answered questions from the media. After the conference ended, both were understandably much more relaxed than they had been at the pre-launch briefings! I got a chance to briefly say hello and congratulate them. Dan Hartman even took a photo of my nails! Then a couple members of the press did, too. And then a bunch of NASA employees at the press site. There are a LOT of cell phone pics of my nails floating around out there, now!

I’ll be attending another NASA Social in June for the New Horizons mission’s Pluto flyby. Can’t wait! SpaceX will launch their seventh resupply mission toward the end of June. Haven’t heard if they’ll be attempting a barge landing again, but good luck to them if they do!

ISS Expedition 43 and Year in Space

Originally painted March 27, 2015

For the first time ever, an American will be spending one full year in space. Scott Kelly, along with his Year-in-Space partner Mikhail Korniyenko and Gennady Padalka, launched in Soyuz TMA-16M aboard a Soyuz-FG rocket from the Baikonur Cosmodrome on March 27, 2015. They join Terry Virts, Anton Shkaplerov, and Samantha Cristoforetti on board the ISS for Expedition 43. This mission marks the first year-long stay on the International Space Station. 

Scott Kelly’s identical twin brother Mark Kelly remains on Earth as a control. Scientists will be analyzing the effects of long-term spaceflight on the body and will be taking advantage of this unique opportunity with a twin study.  Though he won’t be staying a year, Russian cosmonaut Gennady Padalka will become the record holder for most time spent in space during his six-month stay.

The week’s nails are the Expedition 43 mission patch and a Russian Soyuz rocket. I’m still not sure why the rocket appears gray when it’s rolled out and white when it launches. Ice, maybe? Well, this design may be slightly inaccurate since I’ve got the rocket flying through the sky while fully gray. 

As of April 2015, the Soyuz-FG rocket has made 50 successful flights. I tried to make this design as realistic as possible!  I used my trusty old wax paper technique for both the rocket and the mission patch. I outlined the shape of my nails on the wax paper to make sure I didn’t paint the Soyuz too big or too small. You can see these outlines in the fourth picture above!

I printed a tiny black and white Soyuz and taped it behind the wax paper. I outlined its basic shape, and then added depth by mixing the greenish gray with tiny amounts of dark gray and white. Evidence of these little mixes can be seen in the wax paper photos above as tiny dots next to the rocket. 

For the Soyuz engines, I mixed a little orange and red. There’s a strip the same color in the middle of the rocket, too. The three parts of the Soyuz spacecraft are housed within the white nose fairing at the very top of the rocket. This protective fairing is jettisoned after the vehicle passes through the atmosphere.

All of the tools and nail polishes I used to paint the rocket are shown in the second-to-last photo above. You can see the wax paper, little deodorant top palettes, a couple nail polish colors, and some toothpicks and my tiny brush. That’s it!

For the mission patch, I wasn’t able to include all of the elements (they’re SO tiny!), but I got as many as I could! 

I actually painted all of the elements of the patch, but in the process of peeling them off the wax paper, the tiny space station, moon, Mars, and Saturn all either ripped or stretched. I love that there is so much meaning behind every mission patch. Some of it is obvious, but other symbolism is much more subtle. I like painting mission patches on my nails because there’s always a story to tell.

Side note: actor/creator/producer Seth Green recently designed a mission patch for the Center for the Advancement of Science in Space (CASIS)! I learned a lot about CASIS during my trip to Kennedy Space Center in April as part of the NASA Social group. CASIS oversees research and investigations aboard the ISS that may benefit life on Earth. They even gave us some patches to take home! More on NASA Social in my next post.

I didn’t paint anything on my right hand this time because I decided at the last minute (like, 3 hours before liftoff) that I wanted to do Year in Space nails. I finished taking pictures and posting them just in time for the Soyuz carrying the three astronauts to dock with the ISS!

Photo credits: NASA, Bill Ingalls

50 Years of EVA

Originally painted January 21, 2015

2015 marks the 50th anniversary of the first space walks. Fifty years since we stepped into the void of space in nothing but a fancy, wearable pressure vessel.

Mind you, those spacesuits ARE fancy. Both the Russians and Americans have been using versions of their current suits for over thirty years. Spacesuits needed for extravehicular activity (EVA) are complex little spacecraft all on their own. They have to provide a stable pressurized environment for the astronaut, supply them with oxygen for breathing, remove deadly carbon dioxide, regulate the astronaut’s temperature and insulate them from the temperature changes in space, communicate with the team on the ground and on the spacecraft, shield against harmful radiation, and collect waste, all while allowing the astronaut to move around and perform tasks. The Apollo-era spacesuits were many-layered garments that could withstand hopping and skipping around the Moon.

My left hand shows Ed White, the first American space walker, connected to his Gemini IV spacecraft by a tether on June 3, 1965. During the Gemini program, NASA perfected the skills needed to set foot on the Moon. An essential skill was the ability to venture safely outside the spacecraft.

A sticky hinge on the hatch threatened to end the spacewalk attempt before it began, but Jim McDivitt was able to work it out. Ed White floated outside the capsule and tested a maneuvering unit while McDivitt took photographs and monitored the spacecraft. About 20 minutes later, White made his way back inside, wishing he could stay out longer.

Fun space fact: White and McDivitt were the first astronauts to put an American flag on their suits, and they bought the flags themselves. Previously, all suits had only the NASA insignia and a name patch. They wanted to name their Gemini spacecraft “American Eagle”, but new NASA guidelines prohibited astronauts from naming their spacecraft and allowed only a number designation. Instead, they added a flag to the arm of their EVA suits, and it has continued to be used there ever since. 

Another fun space fact: This year also marks the 50th anniversary of the Mission Control Center in Houston. Gemini IV was the first mission to be operated from the Manned Spacecraft Center (now Johnson Space Center), recognized widely by its callsign, “Houston”.

Their mission was included in a run of commemorative stamps in 1967 celebrating the accomplishments of the United States space program. The stamp’s designer, Paul Calle, was one of the inaugural artists chosen for the NASA Art Program. Some of his work, including pen-and-ink sketches of the Apollo 11 crew, has been exhibited at the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum. For his Gemini 4 stamp, Calle was inspired by photos taken during the mission.

I based my nail design on Paul Calle’s stamp. I painted the astronaut on wax paper first using my new tiny brush. I used different shades of gray for the shadows and 3D effect. For Ed White’s tether, I used gold striping tape. It was very difficult to bend and loop; I had to “glue” it with a ton of clear nail polish, which distorted the color a little. The Gemini spacecraft on the ring finger was painted directly onto my nail. It came out looking more like a wine bottle than a Gemini capsule, but good enough! The pinky is Earth.

On my right hand, I painted a spacesuit boot on the Moon during the first lunar EVA on July 20, 1969. I wasn’t able to determine whether it was Neil Armstrong‘s or Buzz Aldrin’s boot (I THINK it’s Aldrin’s based on other photos), but it was definitely Apollo 11!

Side note: Michael Collins, the third member of Apollo 11, wrote an incredible memoir called Carrying the Fire. Check it out.

I modeled my nails on the Moon photo at the top of the post. First, I painted the Moon boot on wax paper. I then painted the lunar surface as well as I could on my right hand. I’m right handed, so precision painting with my left hand isn’t particularly easy! Luckily, I could kind of just make up Moon rocks. There was one large rock in the photo, so I painted that one and its shadow on my pointer. 

I then peeled up the Moon boot and glued it on my thumb with clear polish. I painted a shadow that extended across to my ring and pinky fingers so that when I had my hand in “photo position”, the shadow would appear to extend to the left. Lastly, I added the shadows from the Moon boot’s tread in the lunar regolith.

Nail art tip: when you’re painting shadows, make sure you know where the sun is so your shadows are consistent and believable!

These nails were Inspired by the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum’s Outside the Spacecraft: 50 Years of Extra-Vehicular Activity exhibition, open through June 8, 2015.

Check out the new NASA documentary “Suit Up”, celebrating 50 years of spacewalks!

Image credits: NASA, Jim McDivitt, USPS/Gwillhickers/Paul Calle

Comet Lovejoy and SpaceX CRS-5 ISS Approach

Originally painted January 12, 2015

Comet Lovejoy glowed bright green in the late December through mid January skies. The comet became visible to the naked eye near the constellation Orion and traveled upward past Orion, Taurus, the Pleiades, and finally out of the ecliptic. Most of what I learned about comet C/2014 Q2 (Lovejoy) came from Phil Plait’s Bad Astronomy blog, so head on over there to learn more!

Spot the comet! Hint: it’s about to hide behind a pine tree. Sorry for the star trails. And the light pollution. It was very easy to find with binoculars and my 6″ telescope! I could JUST barely see it with my unaided eye if I knew exactly where it was and sort of looked at it out the side. Ah, suburbia! Better than urbia, I guess!

For my nails, I based my nail polish comet on Gerald Rhemann’s wonderful mosaic of Comet Lovejoy photos (above) taken in Namibia. It was actually very easy and quick! First, I painted a plain black background, followed by the best glitter nail polish ever created, Funky Fingers “Elsa”. It’s a clear polish with light blue and white glitter of different sizes. There are a few snowflakes in there, but they’re easy to avoid! I’ve only ever found this polish brand at Five Below, so check it out while Frozen’s still a thing! Only $2. I grabbed a couple orange-ish glitters from another bottle to get some more star variety. Side note: Five Below has really great nail polish deals if you’re just starting your collection. I like Funky Fingers better than the Fresh Paint brand they also sell, but both are great. You can usually get 3 for $5!

After the starfield dried, I used the corner of a makeup sponge to dab a tiny bit neon mint green on my pointer finger. After it was pretty bright, I sponged outward a little bit to give the comet its cool  C2 glow. For the tail, I did the same thing with several different blues, with the lighter blue concentrated more towards the middle. Slapped on a quick-dry topcoat and that was it!

Also in space news during the beginning of January, SpaceX launched its fifth cargo resupply mission to the International Space Station. The mission had been delayed several times but finally launched on January 10, arriving at the International Space Station January 12. 

I took the easy route and painted Dragon approaching the ISS from afar. These right-hand nails are a nail-polish depiction of a photo posted on Twitter by Samantha Cristoforetti (above). The Earth didn’t come out looking like the photo, but cloud patterns are really tough to paint, so I’m not too mad about it! For the cloud look, I mostly just used a variety of blues and grays and layered them over and over each other with a tiny brush. I used a small cut-up sponge and a black to blue gradient for the atmosphere.

Kyle Hill shared these nails on Twitter and one of the comments was “I loathed nail art until two seconds ago.” Love that. :) Hoping that this blog can also get a nail artist interested in space!

Credits:

Comet Lovejoy (Comet C/2014 Q2 Lovejoy) Best of mosaics: Gerald Rhemann, used with permission

CRS-5 SpaceX Dragon approach: Samantha Cristoforetti (Twitter), ESA, NASA

Planet Christmas Ornaments

Originally painted December 12, 2014

It’s Christmas time! Well, it was when I painted these, anyway. Behold: tiny Christmas ornaments of the eight planets, Pluto, and a really awesome logo drawn by Emily Lakdawalla for the short-lived (?) TIPSci Twitter account/project (Twitter Institute for Planetary Science) created by Alex Parker. Behind them is a background of a Christmas tree with lights and other ornaments!

Wax paper is my favorite nail art tool at the moment. I painted all of these little planets on wax paper and waited for them to dry before gluing them onto my nails with clear nail polish.

The Mercury imaged I used is from a black and white composite photo by MESSENGER taken in 2011. The lines (which I accidentally made WAY too big) represent the streaks of ejecta formed during a crater impact. For Venus, I painted its iconic cloud structure. On the Earth nail, you can see a tiny Africa peeking through the clouds. Mars has polar ice caps in the image I painted. Jupiter ended up on my smallest nail, so its Great Red Spot is very very tiny! Saturn’s rings were the most difficult element to paint of any planet. I did a lot Uranus is seen in its odd 98-degree tilt to the orbital plane. Neptune has storms that pop up for a few months, and here, I painted the white cloud group known as Scooter, observed in 1989. Finally, my Pluto painting is based on Hubble images taken from 2002 to 2003 that show white, orange, and charcoal terrain. Next time Christmas rolls around, we will have MUCH better photos of Pluto to look at thanks to the New Horizons flyby happening in July of 2015!

The gold parts on top of the planets are supposed to make them look like Christmas ball ornaments hanging in a tree. After I posted these, someone linked on Twitter to these beautiful hand-blown glass planet ornaments, which is exactly what I was going for with my nails!

Before sticking the planets on, this is what the Christmas tree looked like! 

ISS Expedition 42 Begins

Originally painted November 20, 2014

Samantha Cristoforetti, Terry Virts, and Anton Shkaplerov joined Butch Wilmore, Elena Serova, and Aleksandr Samokuyaev aboard the International Space Station on November 23 for the beginning of Expedition 42.

The ISS’s solar arrays form a “4″ and Roman numeral "2″. Very clever!  

As any fan of Douglas Adams knows, 42 is the Answer to the Ultimate Question of Life, The Universe, and Everything! NASA released an AWESOME crew poster in the style of 2005′s The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy movie. Cristoforetti is a huge fan of the series; based on her tweets during the mission, I can tell she loved being a part of it!

See more of NASA’s Space Flight Awareness posts over here. How many references can you recognize?

Rosetta and Philae Comet Landing

Originally painted November 10, 2014

On November 12, 2014, we accomplished something extraordinary: we landed on a comet. Even though the landing didn't end up going exactly as planned, it was still an indisputably successful mission. I personally can’t think of too many “we” moments, where “we” is humans of Earth, in my lifetime. Every once in a while, something happens to unite the world, if only briefly. The European Space Agency’s achievement was just that. Everyone’s eyes were on Rosetta and Philae as they executed complex maneuvers to orbit and land on comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko.

Philae, as we know, actually landed three times, and eventually came to rest tilted sideways in some sort of dark crevice on the surface. Philae completed the primary science mission while surviving on only battery power for nearly 57 hours. 

Philae succeeded in sending back all the data that had been collected during the first science sequence, including stunning photos from the surface of the comet, before entering idle mode.

Philae’s instruments shut down as its batteries died, unable to recharge due to lack of sunlight. But, as the comet approaches the sun, enough light may fall on the solar panels to wake Philae up again. Rosetta, still orbiting and studying comet 67P, has begun periodically listening for a signal from Philae. As amazing as this mission has already been, Philae recharging and waking up would just be icing on the cake.

I had been following the mission for several months by the time the landing came around, and I really wanted to paint some nails for the occasion. I had already painted comet 67P nails, and while looking or an idea, I came across the cutest video, put on YouTube by ESA. It’s actually a series of cartoon videos about Rosetta and Philae and their missions and challenges. I don’t know exactly who made them, but they are PERFECT. Also great for nail art!

I took some screenshots of different moments in the cartoon and chose some (above) that I thought would tell a good story. On my thumb, I repainted comet 67P using some grays and blacks. The pointer finger is a clip from the cartoon of people on Earth looking toward the comet. The middle and ring fingers are Rosetta and Philae, which I painted using the wax-paper-peel technique, shown above. The pinky is Philae gliding above (sliding down?) the comet’s surface. I attached some progress pictures at the top of the post showing the sponge-textured starry blue background and the tiny Philae and Rosetta. I put a drop or two of nail polish close to the “work area” of the wax paper and use a toothpick or small brush to do the details. If the details are very fine, I’ll put a good thick-ish coat of clear nail polish over the whole thing so it doesn’t get messed up when trying to peel it off. 

Protip: DEFINITELY wait until the polish is completely dry on the wax paper before trying to peel it up. If it’s not, the design/thing you've spent so much time painting will become distorted and stringy, kind of like hot cheese on a slice of pizza that just won’t separate from the rest of the pizza. Sometimes it is dry to the touch on top, but some of the thicker parts may still be wet underneath. Better safe than sorry! If you’re in a rush, you can apply a coat of quick-dry topcoat polish to the wax paper before you start painting your design, and then paint directly on top of that (Walmart’s Pure Ice “Girl on the Run” is my favorite. And SO cheap.). I don’t recommend it if you’re painting with toothpicks, though, because the toothpick will “cut” right through the topcoat to the wax paper and it kind of bubbles up around the edge.

I’m very pleased with how they turned out! I couldn’t get as much detail as I wanted, but at least the designs are recognizable! Hooray for Philae! Sweet dreams, and I hope you wake up soon!

The right hand turned out looking awful. I tried to paint the comet’s surface up close, and on the thumb, I tried to paint ESA’s logo (insignia?) but everything smudged because I was impatient. I didn’t even bother taking photos it was so bad!

For videos of briefings during the landing and reports and interviews with the scientists involved, visit http://livestream.com/esa/cometlanding.

To see where Rosetta, Philae, and comet 67P are now, and to learn more about their travels, visit http://rosetta.esa.int/.

Messier Objects

Originally painted October 23, 2014

Wow. This is a giant picture post! Messier object nails were something I’d been considering for a few weeks but kept procrastinating because I thought they would take forever. They didn’t! So glad I did them. I stumbled across tons of awesome blogs and people after posting these nails. They were retweeted by EarthSky and Scientific American! Also, astronomer and science communicator Ethan Siegel wrote a nice post on his Starts With A Bang! blog showcasing some very creative, inspiring, and intricate science-themed nail art, and he included a few of mine!

I thought I would take galaxy-themed nail art (there’s actually a LOT) to the next level by painting actual astronomical objects. I immediately went to French astronomer Charles Messier’s famous catalog of over 100 galaxies, nebulae, and star clusters. He made observations of some of the most well-known objects in the sky, including all of the ones pictured above, in the 1700s and early 1800s. In my intro astronomy lab classes, we would use UGA’s 24-inch reflecting telescope and CCD camera to image these for homework assignments!

The only tools I used for these nails: nail polish of MANY different colors, small nail art brush, cut-up pieces of a makeup sponge, and a toothpick. Plus, for mixing colors, those little plastic lids/protectors that come on deodorant sticks when you first open them. They are the PERFECT miniature palettes.

LEFT HAND

Thumb: Pillars of Creation, found within the Eagle Nebula, M16 (Messier 16). Hubble has taken two stunning photographs of the star-forming columns nearly 20 years apart.  My thumb is based on the filtering of the 1995 version. This nebula is around 7,000 light-years from Earth.

Pointer: Orion Nebula, M42. Another massive star-forming region, the Orion Nebula can be seen easily with a small telescope just under Orion’s belt. It’s the closest place to Earth where stars are being born at 1,500 light-years away!

Middle: Whirlpool Galaxy and its companion galaxy, M51. The Whirlpool Galaxy is my favorite grand-design spiral. Its companion, NGC 5195, is a small, yellowish white galaxy that interacts with the Whirlpool Galaxy over the course of hundreds of millions of years. Both are around 25 million light-years away.

Ring: Ring Nebula, M57. Probably the most famous planetary nebula, the Ring Nebula can be found around 2,000 light-years from Earth and is a shell of gas cast off by a dying central star as it becomes a white dwarf. The vibrant colors represent different ionized gases.

Pinky: Pleiades, M45. Easily visible to the naked eye, the Pleiades is an open cluster, an area 440 light-years away where the stars are relatively young and hot shaped like a miniature Little Dipper.

RIGHT HAND

Thumb: Crab Nebula, M1. The Crab Nebula is a supernova remnant 6,500 light-years away, a violent explosion of gases from a star recorded about a thousand years ago. In the center is the leftover stellar core, now an extremely dense, fast-rotating neutron star. 

Pointer: Dumbbell Nebula, M27. Believed to be around 1,200 light-years from here, this planetary nebula is shaped like a dumbbell and consists of the gas shed off by a star at the end of its life. The white dwarf can be seen in the center.

Middle: Sombrero Galaxy, M104. This nearly edge-on galaxy resembles the Mexican sombrero hat, apparently. I can see it with the rim, maybe! The Sombrero Galaxy is about 28 million light-years away and has a bright round core surrounded by dust comprising the spiral arms. 

Ring: Swan Nebula, M17. Also known as the Omega Nebula, Checkmark Nebula, and Horseshoe Nebula, M17 clearly has a distinctive shape. Similar to the Orion Nebula, this is a massive star-forming region in our galaxy, around 5,000-6,000 light-years from Earth. Check out some of the early sketches!

Pinky: Globular cluster M13. At 25,000 light-years away, the M13 globular cluster is a small, dense sphere of about 300,000 older stars orbiting our galaxy’s core along with dozens of other globulars. Globular clusters are seriously cool and possibly the oldest objects in the galaxy. Definitely worth reading more about!

Already planning my Hubble 25th anniversary nails!

Rosetta’s Arrival at Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko

Originally painted September 15, 2014

After carefully considering five different landing sites on comet 67P Churyumov-Gerasimenko, the European Space Agency announced on September 15, 2014 that landing site J, later named Agilkia, would be the target for Rosetta’s lander Philae.

The dramatic images sent back from the comet’s orbit inspired this week’s nail design. Comet 67P has a head and larger body connected by a narrower neck, sort of like a rubber ducky. As ESA’s Rosetta spacecraft approached the comet in August, it used its onboard Navigation Camera to snap photos of the 4-km-wide world. ESA released an impressive animation of Rosetta’s arrival.

Emily Lakdawalla, whose blog consistently blows my mind, separated some of the frames from the animation to make the composite of Navcam images at the top of the post. For my nails, I used images from the second row, which she writes are likely about an hour apart during comet 67P’s rotation.

To paint the comet, I first painted my nails black. I used a small brush to outline in light gray the general shape of the comet in each Navcam image, starting with the second on the second row. From there, I painted little smears of darker and lighter gray polish where needed. I have a small clear plastic tray about the size of a drink coaster that was once part of the packaging for something in a box, and I use that as a sort of palette for all my whites, blacks, and grays. For the shadows on the comet, I used the nail polish brush to drop some varying grays onto the tray. Once the drops start to dry, they become a little tacky/sticky, so I then used a dotting tool (or toothpick) to dab on some of the drier polish. This creates a more uneven texture that isn’t so smooth, just like the surface of the comet. Plus, sometimes the drop of polish gets stringy when you dip a toothpick in it after it starts to dry (the inside of the bubble is still wet), and the little stringy loop that comes up onto the toothpick/dotting tool can work as a crater rim if you stick it to your nail right!

If you want to relive Rosetta’s approach to comet 67P/Churyomov-Gerasimenko and Philae’s adventures, check out Emily Lakdawalla’s blog posts from around August through November of 2014! Seriously great, awe-inspiring reading. And follow her on Twitter!

More on Philae when I post my Philae landing nails!

Credits: Landing site photo: ESA / Rosetta/ MPS for OSIRIS Team / MPS / UPD / LAM / IAA / SSO / INTA / UPM / DASP / IDA Comet rotation composite: ESA / Rosetta / NavCam / Emily Lakdawalla Comet approach animation: ESA / Rosetta / Navcam

This Week in Space News

Originally painted September 24, 2014

Back in mid-late September, there were a lot of exciting things happening in space-related news. Let’s go finger by finger! (Trying out a new post format!)

Thumb: On September 21, NASA’s MAVEN spacecraft (Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution) successfully entered Mars’ orbit to study the gases in planet’s upper atmosphere. On Twitter, I happened across the most adorable little piece of art by Alex Parker and HAD to recreate it. Head over to his Twitter for awesome science and many more gems like this one. Nail note: this attempt at Mars was much more successful than the first, I think! Banana Republic has (had? got it in 2011) a great reddish orange polish called Honeymoon that is great for Mars!

Pointer and Middle: NASA announced on September 16 that Boeing and SpaceX were chosen as part of the Commercial Crew Program to provide transport to and from the International Space Station and low-Earth orbit. The CST-100 and Dragon version 2 on these two nails are based on designs found on the SpaceX and Boeing websites. Nail note: I painted these on wax paper first before sticking them on my nails with clear polish. I forgot to account for the curve of the nail, so they came out a little distorted!

Ring: The first launch I heard about after I became re-obsessed with space happened to be the SpaceX CRS-4 cargo resupply mission on September 21. This was the mission that brought the 3D printer to the ISS, which we’ve already seen printing some really cool things. The launch happened at night, and SpaceX shared a long-exposure photo that I thought was just beautiful. And obviously a great candidate for my nails. The smoke and reflections in the water were really difficult, but I think this nail is my favorite of the bunch!

Pinky: Expedition 41 got into full swing when Butch Wilmore, Elena Serova, and Alexander Samokutyaev joined Max Suraev, Alex Gerst, and Reid Wiseman aboard the ISS on September 25.  After painting the rest of the fingers, I got a little lazy on this one. I ended up cheating by printing a very very small ISS Expedition 41 mission patch, cutting it out, and shaping it to my nail. I had done this a couple times before when the Atlanta Falcons were in the playoffs. I printed in color lots of tiny little football players and basically glued them on my nails. I don’t have a printer that can print nail decals (I don’t actually know if you can buy one of those), so that was the solution. Anyway, I originally planned on trying to freehand the mission patch, but I didn’t have a brush thin enough for that level of detail. 

I need to do the news-on-nails thing again. It was really fun!

Credits: Alex Parker, SpaceX, Boeing, SpaceX, NASA

Earth from Space

Originally painted September 3, 2014

Astronauts + Twitter = social media magic. Nowadays, people living and working in space can snap a photo out the window of the International Space Station and share it with the whole world in a manner of minutes. How incredible is that? Every once in a while, a Twitter-savvy astronaut makes his or her way into orbit and shows us stunning pictures of what only a tiny, tiny group of humans gets to see with their own eyes.

Credit: Reid Wiseman/NASA

When I rediscovered my interest in space last summer, Reid Wiseman and Alexander Gerst were those astronauts. Gerst, an ESA astronaut and volcanologist, tweeted in both English and German, making the linguist (and German minor) in me very happy. Wiseman and Gerst also posted short videos on Vine and Twitter from space, including some awesome timelapses. Even though they’re zooming around the Earth 16 times a day up there, their images are somehow very calming.

Credit: Reid Wiseman/NASA

Inspired by Gerst and Wiseman’s photos, I set out to recreate a 2010 photo taken by a crew member on board Space Shuttle Atlantis during STS-132 on my nails.

Credit: NASA/STS-132

An astronaut favorited my tweet. I am geeking out a little bit! But seriously, he could totally be time traveling Picard.

Apollo 8 Earthrise

Originally painted August 12, 2014

On December 24, 1968, Christmas Eve, Apollo 8 reached the Moon and became the first manned spacecraft to enter lunar orbit. 

Jim Lovell and Jeffrey Kluger’s Apollo 13 novel renewed my interest in the history of space flight when I read it last summer. Though he chiefly describes his stressful journey (my word, not his; astronauts are always keeping their cool!) on what was supposed to be the third Moon landing, Lovell also shares stories from his time in the military and from his trip aboard Apollo 8 with Frank Borman and William Anders.

Highly recommended. Found this one at the thrift store for $0.33!

In the book, Lovell recounts how the mission of Apollo 8 wasn’t confirmed until what seemed like the last minute. The crew of Apollo 8 wasn’t sure if they’d just aim for Moon, circle it, and come back, or actually attempt to orbit it. In fact, Apollo 8 was originally planned to be a test of the Lunar Module in Earth orbit with the crew of what eventually became Apollo 9, but construction on the LM fell behind schedule and the original Apollo 8 crew decided to switch places and missions with the Apollo 9 crew to continue training on the LM. Now that Borman, Lovell, and Anders had been moved up from Apollo 9 to Apollo 8 and the original objective of testing the Lunar Module also moved to Apollo 9, it was decided that Apollo 8 should go to the Moon if NASA had any chance on fulfilling Kennedy’s mandate to land on the Moon and safely return before the end of the decade.  On November 11, after the success of Apollo 7 and at the recommendation of important NASA decision makers, it was announced that Borman, Lovell, and Anders would take Apollo 8 on the first trip beyond low Earth orbit to orbit the Moon.

Mars Curiosity 2nd Land-iversary

Originally painted August 6, 2014

On August 6, 2014, Earth celebrated the second landing anniversary of NASA’s Curiosity rover on Mars.  Since Curiosity launched on November 26, 2011, it has spent its time studying Mars for signs that its surface may have once had environmental conditions favorable for simple life forms. Plus, Curiosity has sent back some pretty incredible photos of the red planet.  

The news of the landiversary was the first headline swimming around after I rediscovered my space obsession, so I set out to do some Martian nail art.  I had painted Mars before for a space-themed dormitory hall during my time as an RA, but shrinking it down to fingernail size was totally different.

First attempt painting Mars for hall decorations, way back in 2008.

Painting a tiny Mars wasn’t actually that difficult. The most challenging part was finding the right colors, both for the planet and the Martian sky. After doing some research, it’s clear that the actual color of Mars is up for debate and totally depends on the filter used and what color the photo is adjusted for.

Image credit: NASA/Hubble WFPC2

Welcome!

Hello, space and/or nail art fans!

Over the past few months, I’ve been painting some nail designs motivated by my interest in astronomy and space. I’ll be sharing the ones I’ve already done here and posting new nails as they happen.

I sometimes like to do nail art related to what’s happening in space news. I wasn’t blogging when I started painting space nails, so some of these astro-themed nails are a little out of date, but I’ll give you the context within the post!

Head over to the About Me if you’re interested in knowing more about how I ended up here. If you’d like to submit an idea or link to an inspiring photo or story, you can submit via the Ask page or email me (icon to the right)!