Picture of the Day: NASA's Award-Winning Artwork

This image, which is comprised of three different photographs of microgravity flames overlaid on top of one another, won first place in the 2011 Combustion Art Competition, proving that, in addition to groundbreaking research, NASA can produce award-winning art. Created by Sandra Olson, an aerospace engineer at NASA's Glenn Research Center, this image (and others in this set) is meant to demonstrate how fire acts differently in space than on Earth.

"Each image is of flame spread over cellulose paper in a spacecraft ventilation flow in microgravity," NASA explained. "The different colors represent different chemical reactions within the flame. The blue areas are caused by chemiluminescence (light produced by a chemical reaction). The white, yellow and orange regions are due to glowing soot within the flame zone."

View more Pictures of the Day.

Image: NASA.