Thin slices of a meteorite, seen through different filters. Or a Warhol piece or knock off. Either way, I'd hang it on my wall. Fun gift idea - framed science pics! Astronomy! Genes! Microscopes! There's a lot of beautiful images. Like this one:
Call me an enormous nerd, sure, but the Periodic Table is a thing of beauty. Its elegance is stunning, and the meaning behind it is profound. The numbers on each element represent the number of protons in the atom's nucleus, and thus also the number of electrons orbiting the nucleus. Dig it: Each new row represents a new electron shell - the orbital paths of the electrons. Hydrogen and Helium have one. Lithium and all the elements in row two have two, Sodium's row has three, and so on. The columns are called Groups and each column has the same number of electrons in its outermost shell, giving each element in the column similar properties, despite the difference in number of electrons. For it is true! All matter is made up of elements - you, me, the tree, the oceans, the Earth, the Sun, all the stars, the vast clouds of gas spanning hundreds of light years, and so on - all just collections of elements. And each element is an atom that becomes the thing we know as Gold or Silver or Oxygen simply based on its number of protons and electrons. Hydrogen has 1 electron, Helium 2, Lithium 3, Iron 26, and so on. And thus our reality is fashioned. It's incredible! And all presented cleanly here in this awesome chart. Awesome work, Dmitri Mendleev!
Bonus element pic:
Earth and our Moon as seen from Mercury. All but vast collections of different elements bound together by gravity.
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