Scientific Quickly - Saying Farewell to the Gaia Mission

Given our choice of an episode, I was tasked to create a feature cover for this episode from Scientific American’s podcast “Science Quickly.” The episode discusses the Gaia spacecraft and its mission to map the milky way. I wanted to take a more graphic approach to this project while still making the subject clear. Here, the Gaia spacecraft is seen from below, with beams signifying how its camera “scans” space. My goal with this composition was to really drive home the idea of the spacecraft’s function as a mechanical cartographer/eye.