Artist Teams With JP Aerospace To Photograph Plants In Space

The art of taking pictures of objects is space got recent attention via astronaut Reid Wiseman, who took a picture of dice floating in space and more, sharing the images over his Twitter. A Japanese artist has done something similar, teaming up with JP Aerospace to take pictures of plants in the stratosphere.

Makoto Azuma is a Tokyo-based artist who wondered what plants would look like suspended well above the ground. "I wanted to see the movement and beauty of plants and flowers suspended in space," he said. To do this, he set out to create Exobiotanica alongside a team of 10 crew members.

Last Tuesday, bonsai and flowers were sent into the stratosphere from the Black Rock Desert in Nevada, all of them attached to metal frames. Cameras donated by Fujifilm, as well as six GoPros, were used to photograph the plants.

The plants and cameras were fitted to helium balloons, which lifted them into the sky during the early morning hours. One of the ballons made it to 87,000 feet, the other to 91,800 feet. The end result are some stunning images, all of which you can check out for yourself here.

SOURCE: The New York Times