“In a conversation we were talking about star maps and the story-necessity for the navigational instrument we would see, and Ridley Scott started talking about a painting he had in his mind,” Spaihts remembered. “Circles in circles with a candle lit image,” Scott had said. Spaihts thought of the mechanical “Orrery” device and did a Google image search.

“Yes, that’s the painting I mean,” Scott exclaimed. “Scientist, scholars and children.”

That was Scott, “making the leap from a star map, to an Enlightenment painting, and then back into the far future. His mind just multiplexes in that way,” said Spaihts. “For a writer it’s like riding a bucking bronco. That kind of interplay is one of the great joys of screenwriting.”

[source]