Drawn! The Illustration and Cartooning Blog

Oh my god! Our sun is going super-nova! Ha ha! Relax, I kid because I love. This 40-Earths long Solar Prominence is totally normal, and wouldn’t hurt a fly. Unless it were, y’know, floating around really close to the sun or something.

Yes, these are mostly photos and not illustrations, but being the visual types I know you are, I hope you’ll appreciate this anyway. My fellow artists/science nerds out there have been in-the-know about the Astronomy Picture of the Day site for years (I remember initially finding it as a “feed” plugin for Apple’s now defunct Sherlock app) but, despite the fact it’s been online for over 12 years now, I bet most of you have never heard of it. Think of it as Drawn! for astronomers. (An RSS feed is available here)

And they don’t just post jaw-droppingly (I just made that word up) spectacular satellite photos either, but also artists’ renditions such as this digital illustration of Eris, our newest planet, by artist Thierry Lombry.

They also occasionally post clever optical illusions like the one seen as today’s APotD. Here’s the illusion: Squares “A” and “B” are the exactly same colour. Yes they are. Yes they are! Don’t believe me? Click here to reveal the truth. Or drag it into Photoshop and see for yourself.

PS: More for you nerds: Astronomy Cast podcast.