Have you ever visited an art museum? You can choose to walk through the halls looking at paintings, reading the labels, and making your own interpretations; or, you can choose a guided tour with a museum docent. Docents are skilled and knowledgeable guides who can describe the paintings, give the history and background, and provide interesting details not readily apparent or known by the observer. A guided interpretation by a docent leaves a visitor with a feeling of wonder, awe, and new knowledge!
Imagine you are the docent at a new art museum- The Chandra Portrait Gallery of the X-Ray universe. The art museum contains never-before-seen portraits of galaxy clusters, exploding stars, pulsars, turbulent regions of space around black holes, and more! To make the museum, interesting and informative, it is your job, as a docent, to explain the portraits to visitors so they can appreciate and understand what they are looking at.
This task consists of two parts:
Part I: The Portrait
Part II: The Guided Interpretation
Choose a false-color X-ray image from the Chandra Web Site at http://chandra.harvard.edu. Using any art medium you choose, create a "framed" gallery portrait of that image. Be sure your portrait accurately represents the detail of the image. Create a label with the name of your portrait and the artist. Affix your label to the portrait.
Either perform or write out a guided interpretation of the portrait that will be given by a docent to the general public. Your guided interpretation should include:
- A detailed description of the cosmic object in the portrait.
- Where the cosmic object was found, including an explanation of the vast distance.
- How the cosmic object was observed and translated into a visual image that could be captured in the portrait.
- Interesting and relevant scientific information astronomers have gained or are investigating from the cosmic object in your portrait.
Remember- your guided interpretation will be given to the general public. Be sure to communicate clearly and effectively so all visitors to the museum will understand your description.