If the movie Interstellar wasn’t enough to get you dreaming about leaving Earth and inhabiting other planets, then these amazing new posters by NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory certainly will. They’ve produced three brilliant, and rather convincing, travel ads for planets outside our solar system, or exoplanets. Obviously, scientists don’t actually know what it really looks like on the surface of each planet, so they’ve used some artistic license, but they’re certainly enough to feed your imagination.
Where the Grass is Always Redder on the Other Side
Kepler-186f, or “Earth’s cousin,” is the first Earth-size planet discovered in a star’s habitable zone, or the region around a star where liquid water could pool on the surface of an orbiting planet. This exoplanet is almost 500 light-years from Earth and is thought to have a rocky surface. The reason that this poster features red foliage is because Kepler-186f’s star is significantly cooler and redder than our own Sun, so if plant life were to exist, its photosynthesis could be affected by the star’s red-wavelength photons.
NASA/JPL-Caltech
Experience the Gravity of a Super Earth
HD 40307g is one of six planets hosted by the dwarf star HD 40307, which is located just 44 light-years from us. It’s classified as a super-Earth, which means it’s larger than Earth but smaller than a gas giant like Neptune. Once again, the planet is within its star’s habitable zone, but scientists aren’t sure what its surface is like. However, they do know that it has a mass around eight times Earth’s mass, meaning its gravitational pull is significantly stronger than that of our own planet.
NASA/JPL-Caltech
Relax on Kepler-16b- Where your shadow always has company
Kepler-16b orbits a binary star system, or two stars orbiting a common center of mass, some 200 light-years from Earth. Although it has been painted as a terrestrial planet, it might also be a gas giant like Saturn.
NASA/JPL-Caltech
