Kepler-16b has been given the moniker “the land of two suns” for a good reason. This newly discovered “exoplanet” was discovered back in 2011 and is one of three that orbit a sun far, far away. To date, the Kepler Space Telescope has discovered over 1000 new exoplanets!
Like Luke Skywalker’s planet “Tatooine” in Star Wars, Kepler-16b orbits a pair of stars. Depicted here as a terrestrial planet, Kepler-16b might also be a gas giant like Saturn. Prospects for life on this unusual world aren’t good, as it has a temperature similar to that of dry ice. But the discovery indicates that the movie’s iconic double-sunset is anything but science fiction. – Nasa
Nasa’s visual strategists (that sounds like an AWESOME job) Joby Harris, David Delgado and Dan Goods created these posters back in December 2014, under the guise of the fictional “Exoplanet Travel Bureau” or as we like to refer to it, the “E.T.B.” Included in this poster series are prints for exoplanets: Kepler-186f, Kepler-16b and the behemoth, HD 40307g.
Kepler-186f is the first Earth-size planet discovered in the potentially ‘habitable zone’ around another star, where liquid water could exist on the planet’s surface. Its star is much cooler and redder than our Sun. If plant life does exist on a planet like Kepler-186f, its photosynthesis could have been influenced by the star’s red-wavelength photons, making for a color palette that’s very different than the greens on Earth. This discovery was made by Kepler, NASA’s planet hunting telescope. – Nasa
Twice as big in volume as the Earth, HD 40307g straddles the line between “Super-Earth” and “mini-Neptune” and scientists aren’t sure if it has a rocky surface or one that’s buried beneath thick layers of gas and ice. One thing is certain though: at eight time the Earth’s mass, its gravitational pull is much, much stronger. – Nasa
Inspired by what Nasa has discovered and now conceived in the realm of space AND travel posters, Olly Moss decided to give it a go and throw his own image into the fray. Revealed on his TWITTER page, Olly said, “I really liked those Nasa Kepler travel posters so I doodled my own.”
Kepler-61b has a radius of slightly more than 2 Earth’s. It is located in the inner part of empirical habitable zone, a zone where liquid water could exist with high albedo, relatively low humidity and higher atmospheric pressure.- Wikipedia
If our math is correct, that leaves only 996 more travel posters to go! It would seem that Nasa and Olly Moss have more than enough to do for the foreseeable future.
