Astronomy vs Art. Are they really independent of each other?

Many consider science and art to be separate and distinct.  Science is based primarily on logic, and art is mainly based on creativity, right?  Is there really an art to be found in astrophysics?  Most definitely!

The first thing that comes to mind is the visual beauty of nature.  When you ask people about space, many will immediately think of the picturesque galaxies photographed by telescopes like Hubble, such as Arp 273 in the image below.

I often like to say that space is the best art gallery out there (it's free, too), and that Hubble is the new Ansel Adams.  But how else is science artistic?  Sure, galaxies are pretty, but is that it?  The short answer is no.

The long answer is that the physical laws governing the cosmos have beauty, themselves.  The fact that something as simple and indifferent as gravity (or as mind-blowingly complex as gravity if you're someone who works with general relativity) can create such magnificent structures is pretty awesome.  The fact that most of the atoms within us originated in the cores of stars is really awesome.  The fact that a sack of organic molecules on a tiny speck of dust rotating around a modest clump of burning gas can calculate the properties of a quasar billions of parsecs away and billions of years in the past is so incredibly awesome that one cannot fully describe it in words.

So nature and the laws that govern it are quite spectacular.  But where's the creativity come in?

"Imagination is more important than knowledge" ~ Albert Einstein

Imagination and creativity are what drive scientists to explore the limits of knowledge.  Since one cannot claim knowledge of what lies in the realm of the unknown (this may seem incredibly obvious, but many treat assumptions as fact), one can only work with imagination to move forward.  The spark behind every hypothesis is a "what if" or "imagine if" question.  What if the Earth orbited the Sun?  Imagine if humans and other apes evolved from a common ancestor.  It is easy to see how the science depends on imagination and creativity just as much as it depends on current knowledge.  Generally, the scientific method consists of the following three stages.

Observation and Questioning

Let's imagine that an individual named Specimen A is looking at a ship sailing into the open sea.  Using binoculars, they will observe that the ship appears to eventually "sink" below the horizon.  "Why does this occur?" asks Specimen A.  The ship couldn't be sinking, since it eventually returns.

Imagination and Prediction

Specimen A ponders the question and stumbles upon a creative solution - a curved Earth, or perhaps even a spherical Earth.  If this were true, then the sinking illusion would be a result of the ship sailing "over" the horizon.  Given the public knowledge of the time, the other specimens would find this suggestion preposterous.  The horizon appears flat!  Surely they know that the Earth can't be curved.  Eager to test this hypothesis, Specimen A imagines what a spherical Earth would mean.  If this were the case, Specimen A could embark on a voyage westward and eventually return from the east.

Experimentation and Obtaining Knowledge

Specimen A sets sail on their boat and travels west.  Surely enough, after sailing around a few continents, they return to Location 1, where they began.  Specimen A just discovered that the Earth is round!

A ship sailing over the horizon

Ultimately, science is a creative and imaginative process of testing the limits of knowledge and uncovering reality bit by bit.  It is, in essence, an art of discovering the natural world.