Michael Najjar

30 January, 2019

A Bright Future - New Scientist magazine publicates the artwork "synlight"

In the 12/January 2019 edition the reknown UK magazine New Scientist publicates Michael´s artwork "synlight". The world’s biggest artificial sun has been blazing at the German Aerospace Center (DLR) in Jülich since 2017. Development of new production processes for solar fuels is the focus of this globally unique Synlight facility for solar research. It consists of 149 powerful Xenon short-arc lamps which scientists can concentrate on a target surface of 20 x 20 centimetres. If this surface is irradiated with beams of up to 350 kilowatts, a light intensity is produced equivalent to more than 10,000 times the solar radiation on the surface of the Earth. When the lamps are focussed they create temperatures of up to 3,000 degrees Celsius which researchers use to produce fuels such as hydrogen. Hydrogen is widely held to be the fuel of the future as it burns without giving off carbon dioxide. Production of hydrogen involves the splitting of the basic material, water, into its two components, hydrogen and oxygen.

The artwork “synlight” portrays the futuristic sun simulator at the German Aerospace Center. Hydrogen is a crucial basic material for spaceflight, and is used as fuel by rockets, spaceships and satellites. As there’s an abundance of water in space - asteroids, for instance, harbour plentiful reserves - in future solar energy could be used to produce the fuel directly in space. This facility with its 149 powerful short-arc lamps was photographed from three different perspectives on one linear axis. The triptych-based composition of the picture layers and fuses the three perspectives so as to exemplify the basic idea of the splitting of a water molecule into two hydrogen atoms and one oxygen atom. The background highlights the industrial research nature of the artificial sunlight facility and underscores its awesome dimensions. Development of solar fuels is essential not just for spaceflight alone but also for our own lives on Earth because in tomorrow’s world renewable energies will form the backbone of the global energy supply.

A Bright Future - New Scientist magazine publicates the artwork "synlight"

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