The Sistine Ceiling

Within the vast complex of Vatican City, which is an independent city-state with its own governing body as well as the seat of the Pope in the Roman Catholic faith, is the famed Sistine Chapel (also known as the Venue of the Papal Conclave). The chapel is named after Pope Sixtus IV, who commissioned its restoration in the late 15th century. Originally, it was defined as the chapel of the Vatican fort, known as Cappella Magna. The chapel serves various important functions, from celebrating papal acts to ceremonies of the Catholic rite, but its major religious role is that of the site where cardinals meet to elect the next pope. The building where the Sistine chapel is located of the building very close to St. Peter’s Basilica and the Belvedere Courtyard in the Vatican.

The Sistine Chapel is also the home of 2 magnificent frescoes painted by the famed Michelangelo, the Sistine Ceiling (as it is known by) and later, The Last Judgement. There are also works from other notable Renaissance artists, from the likes of Sandro Botticelli, Pietro Perugino, Pinturicchio, Domenico Ghirlandaio, Cosimo Rosselli, and Luca Signorelli. The ceiling of the Sistine Chapel was originally painted blue and covered with golden stars (think of the ceiling of Sainte-Chapelle’s lower chapel). In 1508, Pope Julius II (1503-1513) commissioned Michelangelo to paint the ceiling of the chapel, instead of leaving it as it was. The pope wanted the ceiling done in a “ geometric ornament with the 12 apostles placed on spandrels around the decoration”. However, Michelangelo suggested that instead of doing ornamentation, he would do a painting of scenes from the Old Testament. Although, at the time, Michelangelo had been known more for his work in sculpture (as he had recently completed his famous sculpture of the Pietá as well as his statue of David, both of which reside in the Vatican) rather than painting. But, never one to be daunted, Michelangelo rose to the challenge and went on to create one of the most famous fresco masterpieces in Western art!

𐰸 Rendering of the Sistine chapel before Michelangelo worked his magic on it 𐰸

The ceiling of the chapel is made up of 33 separate areas, each space containing a different scene. Each scene is divided using a technique called trompe-l'oeil (visual deception, especially in paintings, in which objects are rendered in extremely fine detail emphasizing the illusion of tactile and spatial qualities), giving the impression that each painting is divided by physical molding within the vault. They are painted in monochromatic colors, creating a spatial effect between each panel. In the center of the ceiling is a series of nine narrative paintings, depicting scenes from the book of Genesis. There are five smaller scenes, each framed and supported by four naked youths or Ignudi. The scenes start with the Creation of the World (Gen. 1) and end with Noah and the Flood (Gen 6:9).

The subject matter was, more than likely, laid out with the help of a cleric from the Vatican (and seeing how this was the home of the pope, he wanted to be sure to get it right!) The entire project took Michelangelo 4 years to complete and took a grave toll on his health. He penned this poem, describing how his work was taxing both his body and mind:

I’ve grown a goiter by dwelling in this den– As cats from stagnant streams in Lombardy, Or in what other land they hap to be– Which drives the belly close beneath the chin: My beard turns up to heaven; my nape falls in, Fixed on my spine: my breast-bone visibly Grows like a harp: a rich embroidery Bedews my face from brush-drops thick and thin. My loins into my paunch like levers grind: My buttock like a crupper bears my weight; My feet unguided wander to and fro; In front my skin grows loose and long; behind, By bending it becomes more taut and strait; Crosswise I strain me like a Syrian bow: Whence false and quaint, I know, Must be the fruit of squinting brain and eye; For ill can aim the gun that bends awry. Come then, Giovanni, try To succor my dead pictures and my fame; Since foul I fare and painting is my shame.

The main theme of the frescoes is that of the connection between humans and God, and nowhere is this more evident than in the panel, The Creation of Adam. We are given a breathtaking vision of the spirit of God embodied as a human form, reaching across the heavens, just out of reach of Adam, who lazily reclines on a barren earth. This contact point has previously been described as a spark or current, an electrical metaphor which would be unknown to those in the sixteenth century. Nonetheless, it seems quite a fitting description, considering that the lifeblood which is about to flow into the awaiting Adam is similar to the flow of electric current produced when a wire is connected to a power source. In this case, the power source being God. This particular piece is world-famous and has been reproduced hundreds of thousands of times. And we can see why. It is such a powerful image.

At either end of the ceiling, and beneath the scenes are Prophets and Sibyls (a female prophet or witch, a nod to the pagan beginnings of religion) seated on grandiose thrones that alternate along the long sides, while the shorter sides are taken over by the figures of Zechariah and Jonah (situated above the altar) who has a distinguished position in so much as he is the adumbration of Christ. The crescent-shaped areas, or lunettes, above each of the chapel windows are tablets listing the forerunners of Christ and their accompanying figures. Above them, in the spandrels (the space between the shoulders of adjoining arches and the ceiling or molding above), eight groups of figures are displayed (however, they have not been identified with specific biblical characters). The entire narrative is finished off by four large corner pendentives (a curved triangle of vaulting formed by the intersection of a dome with its supporting arches) each one portraying a dramatic Biblical story. All of this illustrates the connections to Christ, before and after His birth and death, which are embodied in these paintings.

𐰸 map of the architectural features of the Sistine Ceiling 𐰸

𐰸 Guide to the artwork on Sistine Ceiling 𐰸

In 1510, Michelangelo decided that he needed a well-deserved break from this arduous assignment. Upon his return a year later, his style of painting had undergone a noticeable change. Rather than jumbled and multiple images within a scene, as previously done, Michelangelo had decided to minimise details and focus on essential figures, but on a grand scale. Also, he added a strong sense of emotion to the figures as well as dramatic gestures (as in The Creation of Adam). This would enable the viewer on the floor below to have a clear understanding of exactly what the scene was trying to convey. Further, when we look at the commanding figure of God in three of the frescoes, it clearly illustrates the separation of darkness from light, the creation of the heavens and the earth, all radiating its power through God’s body. The influence of these works cannot be emphasized enough. The complexity of design in the individual figures display Michelangelo’s skill in creating a variety of poses for the human figure. His stupendous works have turned the Sistine Chapel into a veritable academy for future artists!

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1 year ago

An aerial view of the Barents Sea, north of Norway and Russia, shows white, wispy cloud coverage over both land and ocean. Clouds are seen in the bottom left corner extending up towards the top left corner but dwindling as they rise. Clouds are also seen in the top right corner. A green colored land mass is seen along the bottom third of the image. In the dark blue ocean are vibrant swirls of teal and green phytoplankton blooms. Credit: NASA

Sharpening Our View of Climate Change with the Plankton, Aerosol, Cloud, ocean Ecosystem Satellite

As our planet warms, Earth’s ocean and atmosphere are changing.

Climate change has a lot of impact on the ocean, from sea level rise to marine heat waves to a loss of biodiversity. Meanwhile, greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide continue to warm our atmosphere.

NASA’s upcoming satellite, PACE, is soon to be on the case!

Set to launch on Feb. 6, 2024, the Plankton, Aerosol, Cloud, ocean Ecosystem (PACE) mission will help us better understand the complex systems driving the global changes that come with a warming climate.

A global map centered on the Pacific Ocean. The map highlights the areas where ocean surface color changed. Change in color is represented by shades of green. The darkest green correlates to higher levels of change. Black dots on the map represent areas where chlorophyll levels also changed. Credit: NASA/Wanmei Liang; data from Cael, B. B., et al. (2023)

Earth’s ocean is becoming greener due to climate change. PACE will see the ocean in more hues than ever before.

While a single phytoplankton typically can’t be seen with the naked eye, communities of trillions of phytoplankton, called blooms, can be seen from space. Blooms often take on a greenish tinge due to the pigments that phytoplankton (similar to plants on land) use to make energy through photosynthesis.

In a 2023 study, scientists found that portions of the ocean had turned greener because there were more chlorophyll-carrying phytoplankton. PACE has a hyperspectral sensor, the Ocean Color Instrument (OCI), that will be able to discern subtle shifts in hue. This will allow scientists to monitor changes in phytoplankton communities and ocean health overall due to climate change.

Satellite image of a bright turquoise phytoplankton bloom in the Atlantic. The bloom is a large spiral shape on the right side of the image. Credit: USGS; NASA

Phytoplankton play a key role in helping the ocean absorb carbon from the atmosphere. PACE will identify different phytoplankton species from space.

With PACE, scientists will be able to tell what phytoplankton communities are present – from space! Before, this could only be done by analyzing a sample of seawater.

Telling “who’s who” in a phytoplankton bloom is key because different phytoplankton play vastly different roles in aquatic ecosystems. They can fuel the food chain and draw down carbon dioxide from the atmosphere to photosynthesize. Some phytoplankton populations capture carbon as they die and sink to the deep ocean; others release the gas back into the atmosphere as they decay near the surface.

Studying these teeny tiny critters from space will help scientists learn how and where phytoplankton are affected by climate change, and how changes in these communities may affect other creatures and ocean ecosystems.

Animation of aerosol model data around the world. Plumes of red, green, yellow, blue and pink swirl over the gray landmasses and blue ocean to show carbon, sulfate, dust, sea salt, and nitrate, respectively. Credit: NASA

Climate models are one of our most powerful tools to understand how Earth is changing. PACE data will improve the data these models rely on.

The PACE mission will offer important insights on airborne particles of sea salt, smoke, human-made pollutants, and dust – collectively called aerosols – by observing how they interact with light.

With two instruments called polarimeters, SPEXone and HARP2, PACE will allow scientists to measure the size, composition, and abundance of these microscopic particles in our atmosphere. This information is crucial to figuring out how climate and air quality are changing.

PACE data will help scientists answer key climate questions, like how aerosols affect cloud formation or how ice clouds and liquid clouds differ.

It will also enable scientists to examine one of the trickiest components of climate change to model: how clouds and aerosols interact. Once PACE is operational, scientists can replace the estimates currently used to fill data gaps in climate models with measurements from the new satellite.

Animation of the PACE satellite orbiting a gray globe. As the satellite orbits, colorful swaths are left in its path, indicating where the satellite has collected data. Credit: NASA

With a view of the whole planet every two days, PACE will track both microscopic organisms in the ocean and microscopic particles in the atmosphere. PACE’s unique view will help us learn more about the ways climate change is impacting our planet’s ocean and atmosphere.

Stay up to date on the NASA PACE blog, and make sure to follow us on Tumblr for your regular dose of sPACE!

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Maria Thymann - Sophy A. Christensen (1867 - 1955) in her workshop (1899)

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Watch "History of 7th-Day Adventists, Christian Science, J.W.s & Mormons | Intermediate Discipleship #97" on YouTube

What’s Inside a ‘Dead’ Star?

Matter makes up all the stuff we can see in the universe, from pencils to people to planets. But there’s still a lot we don’t understand about it! For example: How does matter work when it’s about to become a black hole? We can’t learn anything about matter after it becomes a black hole, because it’s hidden behind the event horizon, the point of no return. So we turn to something we can study – the incredibly dense matter inside a neutron star, the leftover of an exploded massive star that wasn’t quite big enough to turn into a black hole.

Our Neutron star Interior Composition Explorer, or NICER, is an X-ray telescope perched on the International Space Station. NICER was designed to study and measure the sizes and masses of neutron stars to help us learn more about what might be going on in their mysterious cores.

When a star many times the mass of our Sun runs out of fuel, it collapses under its own weight and then bursts into a supernova. What’s left behind depends on the star’s initial mass. Heavier stars (around 25 times the Sun’s mass or more) leave behind black holes. Lighter ones (between about eight and 25 times the Sun’s mass) leave behind neutron stars.

Neutron stars pack more mass than the Sun into a sphere about as wide as New York City’s Manhattan Island is long. Just one teaspoon of neutron star matter would weigh as much as Mount Everest, the highest mountain on Earth!

These objects have a lot of cool physics going on. They can spin faster than blender blades, and they have powerful magnetic fields. In fact, neutron stars are the strongest magnets in the universe! The magnetic fields can rip particles off the star’s surface and then smack them down on another part of the star. The constant bombardment creates hot spots at the magnetic poles. When the star rotates, the hot spots swing in and out of our view like the beams of a lighthouse.

Neutron stars are so dense that they warp nearby space-time, like a bowling ball resting on a trampoline. The warping effect is so strong that it can redirect light from the star’s far side into our view. This has the odd effect of making the star look bigger than it really is!

NICER uses all the cool physics happening on and around neutron stars to learn more about what’s happening inside the star, where matter lingers on the threshold of becoming a black hole. (We should mention that NICER also studies black holes!)

Scientists think neutron stars are layered a bit like a golf ball. At the surface, there’s a really thin (just a couple centimeters high) atmosphere of hydrogen or helium. In the outer core, atoms have broken down into their building blocks – protons, neutrons, and electrons – and the immense pressure has squished most of the protons and electrons together to form a sea of mostly neutrons.

But what’s going on in the inner core? Physicists have lots of theories. In some traditional models, scientists suggested the stars were neutrons all the way down. Others proposed that neutrons break down into their own building blocks, called quarks. And then some suggest that those quarks could recombine to form new types of particles that aren’t neutrons!

NICER is helping us figure things out by measuring the sizes and masses of neutron stars. Scientists use those numbers to calculate the stars’ density, which tells us how squeezable matter is!

Let’s say you have what scientists think of as a typical neutron star, one weighing about 1.4 times the Sun’s mass. If you measure the size of the star, and it’s big, then that might mean it contains more whole neutrons. If instead it’s small, then that might mean the neutrons have broken down into quarks. The tinier pieces can be packed together more tightly.

NICER has now measured the sizes of two neutron stars, called PSR J0030+0451 and PSR J0740+6620, or J0030 and J0740 for short.

J0030 is about 1.4 times the Sun’s mass and 16 miles across. (It also taught us that neutron star hot spots might not always be where we thought.) J0740 is about 2.1 times the Sun’s mass and is also about 16 miles across. So J0740 has about 50% more mass than J0030 but is about the same size! Which tells us that the matter in neutron stars is less squeezable than some scientists predicted. (Remember, some physicists suggest that the added mass would crush all the neutrons and make a smaller star.) And J0740’s mass and size together challenge models where the star is neutrons all the way down.

So what’s in the heart of a neutron star? We’re still not sure. Scientists will have to use NICER’s observations to develop new models, perhaps where the cores of neutron stars contain a mix of both neutrons and weirder matter, like quarks. We’ll have to keep measuring neutron stars to learn more!

Keep up with other exciting announcements about our universe by following NASA Universe on Twitter and Facebook.

Make sure to follow us on Tumblr for your regular dose of space: http://nasa.tumblr.com.

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