Mondolithic Studios & MondoWorks | Return to Home Page

Click image to view illustration full size.

China, Russia and the U.S. are developing and testing controversial new capabilities to wage war in Earth orbit. 

The world’s most worrisome military flash point is arguably not in the Taiwan Strait, the Korean peninsula, Iran, Israel, Kashmir or Ukraine. In fact, it cannot be located on any globe. The contested territory? The no-man’s-land of Earth’s orbit, where a conflict is unfolding that is an arms race in all but name.

About 1,300 active satellites now reside in the region of outer space immediately surrounding our planet, where they provide worldwide communications, GPS navigation, weather forecasting, and more. Continue reading this story over at Scientific American Online. For commissions, syndication’s or to be added to our occasional mailing list please contact kennbmondo@gmail.com

Quantum cryptography is the science of exploiting quantum mechanical properties to perform cryptographic tasks. The best known example of quantum cryptography is quantum key distribution which offers an information-theoretically secure solution to the key exchange problem. Recent illustration for Scientific American Magazine. Click image to view full size.

For commissions or syndication’s or to be added to our occassional mailing list please contact kennbmondo@gmail.com

Click on illustration to view full size.

Mars dust storms are much different than the dust devils that many people have seen in images sent back from the planet. On Mars a dust storm can develop in a matter of hours and envelop the entire planet within a few days. After developing, it can take weeks for a dust storm on Mars to completely expend itself. Scientists are still trying to determine why the storms become so large and last so long.

All Mars dust storms are powered by sunshine. Solar heating warms the Martian atmosphere and causes the air to move, lifting dust off the ground. The chance for storms is increased when there are great temperature variations like those seen at the equator during the Martian summer. Because the planet’s atmosphere is only about 1% as dense as Earth’s only the smallest dust grains hang in the air. Surprisingly, many of the dust storms on the planet originate from one impact basin. Hellas Basin is the deepest impact crater in the Solar System.

Mars dust storms are of great interest to scientists and even though several spacecraft have observed the storms first hand, scientists are no closer to a definitive answer. For now, the storms on Mars are going to continue to present challenges to planning a human mission to the planet. Here’s one of the best articles from NASA about the dust storms, and another gallery from NASA/JPL.

For syndications, commissions, or to be added to our Monday mailing list please contact kennbmondo@gmail.com

Click on illustration to view full size.

On Earth, blue light from the Sun is scattered by air molecules and spreads around the sky to create a blue canopy. Mars has less the 1% of Earth’s atmosphere, so we only notice the blue when looking through the greatest thickness of the Martian air (and dust) around the time of sunset and sunrise.

For commissions, sydications, or to be added to our Monday Mailing List please contact kennbmondo@gmail.com with the subject line ‘subscribe’.

Click on illustration to view full size.

‘Oh man wonder if he’ll ever know… He’s in the best selling show… Is there life on Mars?’ – David Bowie –

For commissions, syndications or to be added to or Monday mailing list please contact kennbmondo@gmail.com

Click image to view full size.

A ‘Fallback Friday’ Book cover design and illustration done a few years back for Mythspring: The Lyrics and Legends of Canada. Mythspring is an anthology of original short speculative fiction, including fantasy, science fiction, and horror, where each story is derived from a Canadian song, folktale, myth, or other cultural source. Excerpts of the source text or image appears in the book with each story, along with a brief description of how the author was inspired by it.

Aurora Award – Best Work in English (Other), Nominee 2007

Aurora Award – Best Short-Form Work in English finalist for: All the Cool Monsters at Once by James Alan Gardner and This Ink Feels Like Sorrow by Karin Lowachee.

For commissions, syndications, or to be added to our Monday mailing updates please contact kennbmondo@gmail.com

Click illustration to view full size.

Fanciful concept for a 2 page spread published in Focus Magazine, Italy, on the concept of an Emergency Evacuation Tower in disaster prone areas. I always wanted to do a cantilevered design for an architectural structure and I was quite pleased with the results.

For commissions, syndications, or to be added to our mailing list please contact kennbmondo@gmail.com

Click illustration to view full size.

There is a pink exoplanet circling a star very much like our own, 57 light-years away from Earth. But its origins are a mystery.

In a new study announcing the magenta gas giant, researchers were able to directly image this exoplanet using the Subaru telescope on Hawaii. The color of this blushing body indicates it has less cloud cover than other observed exoplanets, meaning researchers can peer even deeper into its atmosphere to divine its components. Visit NG Kids Magazine Online and subscribe today. A Great Christmas gift for your kids!

For commissions or syndication inquiries please contact kennbmondo@gmail.com

Click to view full size image. A newly-developed mathematical method can detect geometric structure in neural activity in the brain. “Previously, in order to understand this structure, scientists needed to relate neural activity to some specific external stimulus,” said Vladimir Itskov, associate professor of mathematics at Penn State University. “Our method is the first to be able to reveal this structure without our knowing an external stimulus ahead of time. We’ve now shown that our new method will allow us to explore the organizational structure of neurons without knowing their function in advance.”

Sketchbook promo piece. For syndications, commissions, or to be added to our mailing list please contact kennbmondo@gmail.com

Click illustration to view full size. 2 Page spread originally published in ‘El Mundo Magazine’ to accompany the article ‘A World Without People’. For commissions, syndications, or to be added to our mailing list please contact kennbmondo@gmail.com

Click on the images to view in high resolution. Life on Mars – Our latest illustration assignment completed for National Geographic Kids Magazine. 

Cover illustration and design for Fantasy Scroll Magazine’s Anthology ‘Dragons, Droids & Doom’ Year One. You can pick up your copy in print or digital by clicking on this link. Click on the illustration to view full size. For syndications, commissions, or to be added to our mailing list please contact kennbmondo@gmail.com

Devil in a Re;Dress | Throwback Thursday early post – click to view illustration full size. For commissions, syndications, or to be added to our mailing list contact kennbmondo@gmail.com

The Exonaut – Dust Storm. Mondolithic Sketchbook. Click to view the full size illustration.

For commissions, syndications, or to be added to our mailing list please contact kennbmondo@gmail.com