The Most Awesome LED Light Art (in Space!) You’ll See This Side of the Galactic Core

To make LED light art in space you’ll need a handful of LEDs, power source, camera and, well, a rocket. The rocket isn’t for the art per se, but rather for exiting the earth’s gravitational pull and getting to space. That’s where JAXA astronaut Koichi Wakata has a unique advantage over the bulk of us 7.046 billion or so terra-sapiens.

The experiments date back to 2009, when he first used the device called “Spiral Top,” developed in collaboration with light artist Dr. Takura Osaka, rendered below:

http://www.kz.tsukuba.ac.jp/~isobe/spiral.wmv

Astronaut Mouri introduced an interesting phenomena of a pair of pliers, that rotates constantly in circle motion for a while and suddenly, turns upside down. By placing LEDs on four arms of an object and by producing spiral motions due to the reversal phenomena (Fig. 1), the light trace of the LEDs becomes a light art. We simulated this phenomena using our numerical code, and helped to decide the appropriate shape and mass distribution.

He goes on to say,

The “Spiral Top” has four arms with LED lights blinking intermittently, and performs various reversal motions by changing the mass on each arm. It draws concentric circle and multi-spiral light trace in space. It became the world’s first light art in space.

The results are, in one word, incredible:

And during his current stay aboard the ISS he’s taken to broadcasting his project via Twitter:

Another photo of "Spiral Top" developed by Dr.Takuro Osaka. Potential of what zero-gravity can create is unlimited! pic.twitter.com/C6TXzS628w

— Koichi Wakata 若田光一 (@Astro_Wakata) January 6, 2014

軌道上芸術活動の一環として、逢坂卓郎氏が考案したSpiral Topを使った実験を行いました。宇宙は新たな芸術も創造する空間、無重量環境の可能性は無限大です。 pic.twitter.com/O5kxdk40hP

— Koichi Wakata 若田光一 (@Astro_Wakata) January 6, 2014

Here’s a closer look at “Spinal Top” in zero-g:

This "Spiral Top" with LEDs makes an amazing art in zero-gravity. See photos of my next two tweets.　 pic.twitter.com/EvU25l3Il8

— Koichi Wakata 若田光一 (@Astro_Wakata) January 6, 2014

Incredible!

[via Creators Project, images and video via this website]