TIME Science space travel These Vintage NASA Posters Imagine Travel Beyond the Stars Designers NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory capture the excitement of space exploration

Planet-hunters havent found a Mirror Earth orbiting a star beyond the Sun yet, but this weeks discovery of a new batch of exoplanets that come awfully close, plus the announcement that the amazing Kepler probe has topped the 1,000 mark in its search for alien worlds makes it only a matter of time before we find planets where life might be thriving.

Once that happens, of course were going to want to go visit.. Thats not going to happen tomorrow: its impossible to visit any of these worlds in person with any current technology, so until we build a Star Trek-style warp drive or discover an Interstellar-esque worm hole, a trip to an exoplanet will have to remain a dream.

Fortunately, though, NASAs Jet Propulsion Laboratory, in Pasadena, has some professional dreamers on staffartists who try to capture the excitement of space exploration in a way the rest of us can appreciate. Their latest creation: three fanciful posters advertising tourism to three actual exoplanets, done in the gorgeously romantic style of 1930s-era railway posters.

This being a NASA lab, they didnt just make stuff up. There was a lot of back-and-forth with the scientists, says David Delgado, one of the designers, figuring out which exoplanets to choose, then noodling on what it would actually like to visit them. In the case of Kepler 186f, for example, which was discovered last year, the planet orbits a small red star. Maybe the color of vegetation would be different there, he saysand on the poster, it is. The second poster shows Kepler 16b, a planet that orbits twin suns. The third depicts HD 40307g, a so-called Super Earth about 1.4 times the size of our home planet and eight times as massive. All three could in principle be habitable, based on how much heat they get from their stars.

The posters were really designed primarily for use within JPL, says Joby Harris, another designer on the project. When they were released to the public a few days ago, however, the response was overwhelmingly positive. We were a little surprised by it, admits Harris.

He shouldnt be. One of the reasons JPL has these artists on staff, says Delgado, is to get people excited about space science, to build their curiosity. Theyre clearly exceptionally good at doing their jobs.

Three more exoplanet posters are in the works, although theres no word on when theyll be finished. For those who want to print out their own posters, high-resolution print-optimized versions are on JPLs Planet Quest website.

View post:

These Vintage NASA Posters Imagine Travel Beyond the Stars