Original Alien Concept Art By Ron Cobb

Click to embiggen any of the pictures.

More of Ron Cobb's Alien work can be found here.

Cobb contributed to the exterior (miniature) look of the Nostromo, while designing many of the spacecraft's interior sets, for the original Alien film.

You can read a short piece he wrote about his work on the Nostromo here.

GM IDEAS: Planet Of Iron Rain

Astronomers have discovered a tidally locked exoplanet with an atmosphere where it rains of molten iron.

WASP-76b orbits a star in the Pisces constellation, 640 light-years from Earth, and an article on Popular Mechanics explains:

"The day side is constantly bombarded by radiation and can see temperature spikes of over 4,000 degrees Fahrenheit (roughly 2,204 degress Celsius)— hot enough to split open molecules and vaporise metals like iron."

However, the nightside is much cooler, about 1,482 degrees Celsius, and so when:

"...the atmospheric winds carry the vaporised iron over to the night side, they begin to condense and fall to the surface as rain."

It's The Only Way To Be Sure