After doing initial research on Jupiter and traditional visual fx on film, I was still unsure what Jupiter looked like since it was made mostly of metallic hydrogen, which has rarely ever been seen on earth by a few accidents. So I contacted a professor in chemistry, Beverly Clement, who gave me a fantastic poetic visual description of metallic hydrogen. I've posted her description below:
"This
is the emission spectrum of hydrogen. Without the aid of a prism or
grating the color you see from ‘excited’ hydrogen is a blue with pink
overtones – not a pigment effect but two clean simultaneously visible
colors, one blue the other red so you get the impression of a blue that
is almost blushing. The indigo and violet lines darken the blue cast as
an impression of these colors not a blending with the blue.
The
pure liquid is supposed to be colorless, and as far as thickness or
viscosity, it is a very light liquid without the ability to stick to
other things. It probably wouldn’t pick up many impurities. The only
way that hydrogen can exist as a liquid is either under extreme pressure
or incredibly cold temperatures (roughly 20 degrees above absolute
zero). The slightest disturbance would provide sufficient energy for
spectacular (explosive) vaporizations. These vaporizations would
possibly be visible as geysers of light energy coming from a seething
surface. Since there isn’t really any energy involved in holding the
liquid hydrogen together, wave action would probably be sufficient to
excite the hydrogen at the crests of any waves to possibly emit light of
these emissions at the points of the waves and any sprays that might
stream from these crests. This evaporation would probably also produce
some solid hydrogen that would fall and implode on the surface of the
liquid. If solid hydrogen were to exist, it would probably glow
(possibly a blue white). While the term ‘metallic’ hydrogen brings to
mind the metallic luster we associate with metals, hydrogen’s glow would
only be of the excited hydrogen at the surface where the liquid and gas
met or where the action of wind (possibly also made of pure hydrogen)
exciting the surface of the ocean and painting its reverse Aurora
Borealis on the surface.
Think
of hydrogen as the ultimate gas that is only forced into liquid state
under extreme conditions and anything (from gently falling cosmic dust
to impact form space debris) will cause the liquid to vaporize – with
the simultaneous release of light energy and formation of solid
hydrogen."
My Jupiter visualizations will be based off these descriptions.
Currently, my dividers for my water tank are drying with silicon on them. The silicon takes 24 hours to dry so they'll be ready to test tomorrow.
Meanwhile, I had 2 other side projects going along, one with cotton and the other with paint. Here are the results with a Macro lens and different lighting set ups with the paint. The paint it suppose to demonstrate the colors of metallic hydrogen where it's a blue with blushing shades of red, but not pigmented and the colors are separated. I'm not entirely happy with the results, I'm thinking of sanding down the paint so it has more smooth look, or try some digital manipulating to smooth it out. I'm also going to use this paints in the water tank to see if the looks is better.
I'll be getting Christmas lights to put behind the cotton to demonstrate
the light geysers of excited hydrogen. Once I have the tank tests going, I'll be experimenting using
the cotton as a backdrop to the tank and as compositing. But up close I feel the cotton is successful to give a gaseous look so I'm happy with the results.
Also, this past week I launched my website!
www.cassandrahanks.com
