The search for an image worthy of being the screen background every hour of day and night isn’t something to entrust chance or lucky with. The four works selected for this post are a relatively low-fi choice, an ideal wallpaper for messy, icon-ridden desktops able to merge aesthetics and functionality with not too many details turning the display into a surrealistic painting. Do yourself a favor: use a sober wallpaper and spare a visit at the oculist!

The first image recommended by Sir Arthur is And the Heavens shall tremble, a work by the clever deviantART artist PepperWolf which seems to have an obsession for the archangel Tyrael from the Diablo myths. But the Tyrael depicted by PepperWolf predates the treacly and sickening version designed by Blizzard for Facebook Diablo (aka Diablo III), so it retains all the mystery and epic breath belonging to the character until the final events told in Diablo II. The attached image has been readjusted (1680×945) for use on widescreen displays with a 16:9 ratio, the 16:10 original one (1680×1050) can be downloaded from deviantART.

Tyrael wallpaper – direct download

The second wallpaper on the list opens the space triptych of the day with a view of the Pluto surface, or a view of the former planet of the Solar System now degraded to dwarf planet by the International Astronomical Union. The 3D rendering – made by L. Calçada for the European Southern Observatory (ESO) – captures a detail of what should be the Plutonian surface, made up of nitrogen, methane and carbon monoxide in ice form. On the background, on the left, the moon Charon says hi while the Sun (above on the right) poorly illuminates this dry and unfriendly scenery with a light 1.000 times fainter compared to the one reaching the Earth. The attached image is in an ideal format (2000×1125) for monitors with a 16:9 ratio, while on the ESO site there are several formats available for displays with different ratios.

Pluto wallpaper – direct download

The third image is a triumph of cold colors and geometrically perfect shapes, or to use the original description it’s the Saturn’s Rings in Ultraviolet Light. The photo was captured by the Hubble space telescope in the electromagnetic spectrum of ultraviolet light, and in my opinion it’s one of the most striking demonstrations of the fact that the planetary rings system orbiting the second gaseous giant of the Solar System is one of the universe true wonders. Of this universe, at least. The attached image has been slightly modified (2150×1210) for use on widescreen monitors (16:9), while the original one (2150×1000) can be downloaded from Wikimedia Commons.

Saturn wallpaper – direct download

The last wallpaper on the list is my current favorite, a conceptual representation – in 3D rendering of course – of a supermassive black hole (with a mass millions or even billions times the mass of the star Sol) and the X-ray emissions at speeds near the speed of light sent out by the accretion disk soon before disappearing forever beyond the singularity’s event horizon. Supermassive black holes and the enormous energy levels unleashed by this kind of cosmic beasts are currently the study target of the NASA NuSTAR mission. The attached image is the original one (4400×2475) published by the USA space agency fit for 16:9 monitors, while on the NASA site there are several versions in different formats from 800×600 pixels upward.

Black Hole wallpaper – direct download

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