Nanocosmos: Journeys in Electron Space

A breathtaking tour of the natural world is offered in Nanocosmos, a glorious examination of majestic topographies revealed by powerful scanning electron microscope (SEM) technologies. Nothing like Nanocosmos has ever been seen before. Benson has produced an exhilarating, aesthetically magnificent examination of complex microscopic worlds. The humbling beauty and cosmic immensity of our surrounding universe of planets, stars, and galaxies has inspired humanity since prehistoric times. But what about the vistas at the other end of the size-scale? The tiny worlds here, invisible to our unassisted eyes, are if anything more intricate, complex, and extraordinary than anything so far seen in deep space. Lauded artist and author Michael Benson’s sensational Nanocosmos corrects this oversight with an unprecedented examination of natural design at sub-millimeter scales. Constructed from SEM scans that he made over the course of six years at the Canadian Museum of Nature in Quebec, the images presented here reveal an eerie, awe-inspiring beauty in subjects taken from the natural world. These include radiolarians, dinoflagellates, and diatoms, as well as many varieties of insects, microscopic flowers, and even lunar samples from the Apollo program. The composite mosaic micrographs in Nanocosmos fuse art and science in revelatory ways, exposing an astonishing sublimity hidden to the naked eye.