William Hartmann ’63 is an interesting Penn Stater whom we’ve talked from time to time about featuring in the magazine at some point. He’s a senior scientist at the Planetary Science Institute in Arizona, and he also is an artist who specializes in painting the planets and other parts of the cosmos.

Last week he gave a talk on space art at St. Mary’s College of California, and the school’s student newspaper ran a story yesterday about that.

Hartman was a physics major at Penn State; he went on to get a master’s and Ph.D. in geology from the University of Arizona. In addition to his work at PSI, he also has written three college textbooks on astronomy and planetary science, plus some popular-press books, including A Traveler’s Guide to Mars (2003) and The Grand Tour: A Traveler’s Guide to the Solar System (2005), among others.

Tina Hay, editor