Created by Ashley Zelinskie.

This NFT is the print file for the below physical object.

Exploration JWST

2017

12 in x 12 in x 12 in

30 cm x 30 cm x 30 cm

NASA developed laser gold

(hardest strongest gold used on satellites)

3D printed nylon

$20,000

Exploration. The sole purpose of the James Webb Space Telescope mission. To look back in time and see how our universe was formed. To raise questions we never thought to ask. To reach into the unknown.

“Astronomy by its very nature drives us toward the unknown…there’s something uniquely human about wanting to find out about our surroundings, to explore our world, to discover new things. That’s what astronomy is all about." - Amber Straughn

Exploration was created using 3D scans of John Cromwell Mather, astrophysicist, cosmologist and Nobel Prize in Physics laureate and Amber Straughn Astrophysicist; Deputy Project Scientist for JWST Science Communications. The arms are reaching out of the primary mirror of the JWST as though they are reaching through a portal to the ends of the universe. As they push through they are enveloped in information, formulas that have helped unlock the secrets of the universe.

John describes the Friedmann–Lemaître–Robertson–Walker metric which wraps the arms of the piece. This metric is an exact solution of Einstein's field equations of general relativity.

“The equations wrapped around the hands in this sculpture are the “FLRW" cosmological solution to Einstein’s field equations of general relativity, paired with the formula that describes a parabolic mirror. There are cosmological solutions to Einstein’s field equations that can be used to mathematically describe the universe. In the end, what we are doing is pairing observation with theory to try to create a better description of the universe we live in.”

The third arm is my own; the arm of an artist. The abstract idea of studying what you don't know is hard to grasp. This is a disconnect that art can help fill in. Art asks people everyday to think about abstract ideas and opens doorways for creative thinking. Art can equip us to absorb the universe in all its vastness and mystery.