Science Behind the Art

is is an artwork that beautifully illustrates a coastal environment, including coral reefs. Corals are actually classified as animals. ey are formed of a multitude of tiny tentacled creatures called polyps, surrounded by an exoskeleton made of calcium carbonate. eir food comes from their symbiotic relationship with tiny algae called zooxan thellae found living in their tissues, photosynthesising and providing them with nutrients. ese algae also give corals their colour.

Unfortunately, corals around the world are facing multiple stressors, the most well-known one being coral bleaching. During a heatwave, the coral polyps get very stressed and subsequently expel the algae, leading to starvation and ultimately their death. After their death, only the bare white exoskeleton remains. Sometimes, corals can survive the event, but due to repeated heatwaves over the last few years, scien tists are growing increasingly concerned that many won’t recover.

Another stressor is the acidification of oceans. Oceans absorb a third of manmade greenhouse gas emissions, but as carbon is dissolved in the ocean, it becomes acidic. is can then corrode corals’ calcium carbonate skeletons, stunting their growth.

ere is an urgent need to protect oceans and corals, which is why the UN has declared this decade the Ocean Decade, to raise awareness.

This piece was inspired by a NASA mission to Jupiter, which was launched in 2011. The mission’s objective is to better understand the planet’s origin and evolution and is doing so through the use of a space probe known as Juno. This will allow scientists to shed light on our solar system’s formation.

Similar to the sun, Jupiter’s composition is mainly hydrogen and helium. Because of this, scientists believed it formed quite early on in the history of our solar system by capturing the majority of the material left by the Sun. In addition, the planet’s huge mass means it retained most of this early composition and analysing this will provide scientists with a better understanding of our universe’s past. Juno will study the planet’s atmosphere as well as map its magnetic and gravitational fields. The spacecraft reached Jupiter in 2016 and will orbit until July of this year.

The probe’s name, Juno, comes from Greek Mythology: Juno was Jupiter’s wife. Jupiter, a famous cheater, would hide behind dark clouds to have an affair with a Greek goddess known as Io. Juno managed to see through these dark clouds and discovered the truth. Kiah’s art also draws directly from this mythological story.

Juno is the second mission from NASA’s New Frontiers Program. The first one, known as the Pluto New Horizons mission, reached the dwarf planet in 2015 after almost 10 years in space.