Photos of space that actually depict food

These photos could easily be pictures of distant planets and boundless space, gas clouds and cosmic dust. But it's not what you think. It's all food spread out on the glass of an ordinary scanner.

Navid Barati, a freelance photographer, creates these amazing space stories by laying out spices, food and dishes on an Epson V37 scanner. According to Barati, the black background is achieved thanks to the ability to remove the cover of the device. For his new photo shoot, he even invented the story of a research mission that visits each of the filmed scenes.

For this Earth-like planet, Barati used a glass of water mixed with soy sauce, whiskey, coconut milk and food coloring. The background is made of salt, flour, curry and cinnamon.

The photographer does not stick to edible products alone in his work. This distant galaxy is made of salt, flour, turmeric, sugar, cinnamon and... the hair of the photographer's cat.

This apparently inhabited world is made of a glass of orange juice, tomato sauce, wasabi and milk. The nebula in the background is coffee, cream, water and food coloring. And, since breakfast products have already been used here, the moon is made of a pancake.

With the help of powders alone, Barati can create amazing nebulae…

...clusters of stars…

...and galaxies.

To give the liquids the shape of planets, Barati pours them into laboratory glasses.

For smaller cosmic bodies, he uses a whiskey glass.

This galaxy is made from cheese, cumin, curry powder, flour, salt, cinnamon, poppy seeds and turmeric.

To obtain such gas accumulations, the photographer uses butter.

The poles of this Mars twin are made of cream added to a glass with tomato juice, water, soy sauce and food coloring. The star—studded background is flour and soda.

Perhaps the most amazing details of Barati's scanner art are the gaseous swirls he makes from coffee, cream, soy sauce, water, food coloring, flour and salt.

The photographer took this stunning picture of the solar eclipse from just three ingredients: powdered cheese, turmeric and soda.

This asteroid is actually a potato. The rest of the asteroid belt is made of crumbled cookies, coffee and ground pepper grains.

The most detailed picture can be quite tasty (only if you don't mind cumin). The planet and moon are made of pancakes, the nebula on the background is olive oil, cinnamon, cumin, salt and water.

And even if it's just food on the scanner glass, Barati's creations are still very similar to what we see at night in the sky.

In the end, these are just combinations of light, gas and minerals, the images of which shine to us through the emptiness of space.