Venus Express Art Contest
Send us a "Postcard from Venus" for a chance to win a trip to mission control in Darmstadt, Germany when Venus Express arrives at its destination in April, 2006!
The European Space Agency’s Venus Express mission will be the first spacecraft in over 10 years to visit our nearest planetary neighbor. Venus, shrouded under a dense haze, is a world steeped in mystery. Often called our sister planet, Venus is nearly identical in size and mass, yet its surface temperature is hotter than a kitchen oven because its thick atmosphere traps the Sun’s heat. Instruments on board Venus Express will study the planet’s atmosphere and what drives the planet’s high-speed winds. An on-board camera will capture images of the surface by peering through "windows" in the enveloping haze.
To celebrate this new phase of exploration for Earth’s sister world, The Planetary Society has teamed with ESA to invite youths and adults worldwide to enter the Venus Express Art Contest. The contest theme is "Postcards from Venus." Contest entrants are invited to imagine the surface of Venus from an above-ground perspective – a bird’s eye view of a mysterious world whose volcano-ridden surface contains few impact craters, indicating a planet where resurfacing on a global scale has taken place within the last 500 million years. To learn more about ESA’s Venus Express and what it hopes to learn about this cloud-enshrouded planet, visit ESA’s Venus Express special at venus.esa.int
Contest rules: The contest closes on January 13, 2006. Anyone may enter the contest in either the Youth (age 17 or under) or Adult (18 or over) category. Only one entry per person is permitted. Artwork based on the contest theme may be created in any two-dimensional artistic medium, including computer generated art. The artwork should be of Venus itself, not the Venus Express spacecraft. The artwork should be the size and shape of a postcard. Read the complete Venus Express Art Contest rules here.
