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Description
PLEASE ZOOM IN FOR THE BEST VIEWING

The USS Discovery One: Disaster has struck. All but one member of the crew are dead, killed by the ship's dysfunctioning super computer - HAL 9000. Alone, Commander David Bowman navigates the XD1 past the Jovian moons of Callisto, Ganymede and Europa enroute to rendezvous with the volatile inner moon named Io. Now fully briefed of his mission's true purpose, Commander Bowman is to be more than just an intrepid explorer but an ambassador for his entire species.
Though not yet visible to the naked eye, Discovery's onboard telescopes have pin pointed a black rectangular object in the lead stable Lagrange point between Jupiter and Io. It is over 3km across with identical proportions to a smaller cousin found buried on the Moon. Deliberately buried four million years ago, a type of sign post or calling card for a superior intelligence not born of Earth. An intelligence that is now leading Bowman and his mission to Io and the enigma that awaits him. Soon there will be answers. And to Commander Bowman's astonishment, those answers will be far greater than the questions.

After the passing of science fiction author Arthur C. Clarke, I decided to put together this tribute to him (originally posted on Renderosity), the late great director Stanley Kubrick and the film 2001: A Space Odyssey. A movie created through Clarke's collaboration with Kubrick in the quest to produce, "the proverbial good science fiction film". I'd say they achieved their goals for 2001 is perhaps the greatest movie ever made.
I first saw 2001 on TV when I was about eleven years old. Though much was over my head at the time, this scene of Discovery's approach to Jupiter made a big impression on me. The alignment of the four Galileian moons was Kubrick's idea and would never happen in nature. But Clarke's input carefully crafted how Jupiter's atmosphere might appear up close and it turned out to be a magnificent work of speculative fiction. The first probe encounter with Jupiter was to happen five years after the movie's release. But the movie's depiction bore a near exact resemblance to photos transmitted from Pioneer 10 during its close encounter with Jupiter in December 1973.

As always my tremendous thanks to those artists who provided free materials and props used in this rendering:
Sean Kennedy at [link] for the fantastic model of the Discovery One space craft. Excellent work!
Wolfie at [link] for the Moon/Planet prop.
NASA for the planetary maps of Jupiter and its Galileian moons.

Description
PLEASE ZOOM IN FOR THE BEST VIEWING

The USS Discovery One: Disaster has struck. All but one member of the crew are dead, killed by the ship's dysfunctioning super computer - HAL 9000. Alone, Commander David Bowman navigates the XD1 past the Jovian moons of Callisto, Ganymede and Europa enroute to rendezvous with the volatile inner moon named Io. Now fully briefed of his mission's true purpose, Commander Bowman is to be more than just an intrepid explorer but an ambassador for his entire species.
Though not yet visible to the naked eye, Discovery's onboard telescopes have pin pointed a black rectangular object in the lead stable Lagrange point between Jupiter and Io. It is over 3km across with identical proportions to a smaller cousin found buried on the Moon. Deliberately buried four million years ago, a type of sign post or calling card for a superior intelligence not born of Earth. An intelligence that is now leading Bowman and his mission to Io and the enigma that awaits him. Soon there will be answers. And to Commander Bowman's astonishment, those answers will be far greater than the questions.

After the passing of science fiction author Arthur C. Clarke, I decided to put together this tribute to him (originally posted on Renderosity), the late great director Stanley Kubrick and the film 2001: A Space Odyssey. A movie created through Clarke's collaboration with Kubrick in the quest to produce, "the proverbial good science fiction film". I'd say they achieved their goals for 2001 is perhaps the greatest movie ever made.
I first saw 2001 on TV when I was about eleven years old. Though much was over my head at the time, this scene of Discovery's approach to Jupiter made a big impression on me. The alignment of the four Galileian moons was Kubrick's idea and would never happen in nature. But Clarke's input carefully crafted how Jupiter's atmosphere might appear up close and it turned out to be a magnificent work of speculative fiction. The first probe encounter with Jupiter was to happen five years after the movie's release. But the movie's depiction bore a near exact resemblance to photos transmitted from Pioneer 10 during its close encounter with Jupiter in December 1973.

As always my tremendous thanks to those artists who provided free materials and props used in this rendering:
Sean Kennedy at [link] for the fantastic model of the Discovery One space craft. Excellent work!
Wolfie at [link] for the Moon/Planet prop.
NASA for the planetary maps of Jupiter and its Galileian moons.