New NASA James Webb Space Telescope Art Exhibit Opens to Public

News provided by

Feb 17, 2017, 13:35 ET

GREENBELT, Md., Feb. 17, 2017 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- NASA announced the opening of a free new art exhibit inspired by the James Webb Space Telescope at the Visitor Center at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. The public opening occurs on March 3 for six weeks. Members of the Media are invited to a preview at 1 p.m. EST on March 2.

In November 2016, artists from around the country applied to visit NASA Goddard to see the telescope, with its 6.5 meter high, gold-coated mirror. Twenty five were selected to bring art supplies with them, and be inspired to create right in front of Webb, which was housed inside a massive cleanroom, behind a viewing window. The artists represented a broad range of artistic media and styles, including: watercolor, 3D printed sculpture, silk screening, acrylics, sumi-e (East Asian brush technique), comics, letterpress, woodwork, metalwork, jewelry making, fiber art, ink, mural painting, kite-making, tattooing, scientific illustration, poetry, songwriting, and video making.

Visitors can view an exhibit of the resulting artwork at the Goddard Visitor Center from March 3 to April 16, 2017. There is no entry fee for the Visitor's Center. It is free and open to the general public.

The Webb telescope, a joint mission between NASA, the European Space Agency and Canadian Space Agency, will study every phase in the history of our Universe, ranging from the first luminous glows after the Big Bang, to the formation of planetary systems capable of supporting life on planets like Earth, to the evolution of our own Solar System and beyond.

For more information about NASA's James Webb Space Telescope, visit: www.nasa.gov/webb or jwst.nasa.gov

For directions to the NASA Goddard visitor's center: http://www.nasa.gov/centers/goddard/visitor/directions/index.html

SOURCE NASA