Technology developed at CERN and flown on the International Space Station is now at work helping art experts analyze paintings.
That technology is small, supersensitive radiation detectors that can count and study particles, which CERN developed to track particles at the Large Hadron Collider. On the space station, it manifested as Timepix detectors, used to gather data about how much radiation astronauts are exposed to during spaceflight.
But on Earth, it can be used to create specialized X-ray images of artwork that can help experts determine the authenticity of the picture by precisely analyzing where certain pigments have been applied.
"The art market is a jungle — some say that around 50 percent of art pieces and paintings are either fakes or are incorrectly attributed," Josef Uher, chief technology officer of Czech company InsightART, which is spearheading the project, said in a statement released by the European Space Agency (ESA). "This has huge consequences for the value of such artworks."
This isn't the first partnership between particle physicists and art professionals, who have turned to circular particle accelerators known as synchrotron facilities to gather new data about artworks. These analyses can also be valuable for learning about archaeological finds and fossils.
The company that has been spearheading the art applications is looking to expand how these detectors are used on the ground. "In future we want to combine our X-ray imaging with virtual reality to make it easier and more natural to use when scanning objects," Uher said. "Ultimate[ly] this could even be used for medical applications — it will take time, but it holds so much potential."
The particle technology isn't finished with spaceflight, either — ESA wants to send instruments that would incorporate the particle detectors into orbit on upcoming communications satellites.
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