The cover of Unknown Pleasures is about as iconic as it gets: a series of stark white lines create an image reminiscent of a mountain range on a pure black background. The cover, designed in 1979 by Peter Saville, has remained somewhat enigmatic: Sure, it looks trippy and kinda desolate, which fits well, but where did it come from? Well, according to Saville himself, he copied the image directly from a science book. What’s awesome is that it’s actually the first image of a pulsar.As noted by Fast co.Design, which dug up the video along with a gallery of homages to its design, there’s an extra layer of weird to the pulsar image. Because pulsar emissions are released at precise intervals — as you can guess by looking at the image — researchers first studying them had to discount the potential that they were created by intelligent life. So yeah, there it is: an iconic Joy Division cover was ripped off from research about alien fireworks, or something to that effect.Follow Derek Mead on Twitter: @derektmead.
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