Local artwork is blasted to space

Artist, Jo Bradford places meteorite samples onto light sensitive paper

On the 26 February 2011, space shuttle Endeavour is due to take off from Florida on its final mission to the International Space Station.

On board this flight will be a piece of artwork produced in a traditional Cornish farmhouse near Egloskerry, near Launceston.

It was made by the artist Jo Bradford, whose work was selected by NASA from more than 1,600 submissions around the world.

Endeavour's STS-134 flight from the Kennedy Space Center is scheduled to take up an Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer.

This highly technical piece of equipment is designed to detect cosmic rays.

The Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer will soak up these cosmic rays to detect almost indistinguishable abnormalities originating in the deep universe, potentially uncovering the origin of dark matter.

Alongside this equipment will be a piece by artist Jo Bradford, which itself looks like a scene from deep space.

"What you are looking at is a photogram, which is a form of photography that came about before the camera was invented," she said.

"Way before people had figured out about cameras and lenses, they used to make prints by placing something directly onto light sensitive paper."

Light is cast onto light sensitive paper

Within the images Jo has placed meteorite samples onto light sensitive paper which she bought during her residency at the Natural History Museum.

Whilst on her residency, Jo used the meteorites available to her at the museum but realised that if she was to carry on with her research she would need to have her own.

She then slowly built up her own collection by liaising with a specific meteorite hunter in America. She told him what she wanted and he tracked it down.

The samples are then arranged in such a way on the photo sensitive paper that the resulting pieces look like distant galaxies.