Kepler-16b: One of Three Habitable Planet Images Released by NASA in 2014

Summary: NASA's fictitious Exoplanet Travel Bureau poster promotes Kepler-16b as a habitable planet "where your shadow always has company."

NASA Exoplanet Travel Bureau poster for Kepler-16b: 1930s Works Progress Administration retro-style poster by NASA/JPL-Caltech, Public Domain, via NASA Planet Quest

Poster planets for extra-solar systems with extraterrestrial life

David Delgado and Joby Harris are responsible for the release of three extra-solar system planet images in poster format just before year's end in 2014. They belong to the visual strategy team of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, managed by California Institute of Technology for the National Aeronautics and Space Agency, in Pasadena, California. They configure one of the above-referenced exo-planets as the witness to the universe's respectful treatment of shadows. One poster depicts the astro-geographical mixer of two shadows, both from one life-form on Kepler-16b. In the course of orbiting 41 days around a common central mass, the shadow-casting binary stars Kepler 16-A and 16-B end up being orbited themselves by the planet Kepler-16b.

Role model for getting imaged, measured and weighed

Host stars Kepler-16A and Kepler-16B find their luminosities dimmed by Kepler-16b's transits during quasi-circular 228.776-day orbits. Through NASA's Kepler space observatory-mounted telescope, honoring Johannes Kepler (Dec. 27, 1571 to Nov. 15, 1630), the above-mentioned transits give to Kepler-16b the means for discovery Sept. 15, 2011 by Dr. Laurance R. Doyle (born 1953) of Mountain View, California's SETI (Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence) Institute and the recognition as the best measured extra-solar system planet through mass and size calculations from planetary transit and stellar eclipse durations and timings.

It helps that the parent stars belong to the Northern Celestial Hemisphere's constellation Cygnus ("Swan"), one of 48 constellations identified by Claudius Ptolemy (A.D. 90?-A.D. 168?).

artist's concept of Kepler-16b as circumbinary planet (planet orbiting two stars): image by NASA/JPL-Caltech/T. Pyle ~ NASA Blueshift (NASAblueshift), CC BY 2.0, via Flickr

Spatial location of astrological, astronomical and astro-physical interest

Kepler-16b is within the same spatial sector as Cygnus X-1, galactic X-ray source and location of the first identified black hole in 1964, as Hercules - Corona Borealis great wall, giant galaxy filament covering most of the Northern Celestial Hemisphere and the known universe's largest observable structure, as NMI Cygni, one of the universe's largest stars, as the Northern Cross asterism (human-imagined star pattern), and as the Southern stellar Triangle of Aguila ("Eagle"), Deneb ("Tail") and Lyra ("Lyre").

It joins the rest of Cygnus in occupying the same spatial plane as Earth's Milky Way galaxy. Scientists know that Kepler-16b is similar to dry ice in surface temperatures from minus 150 to minus 94 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 100 to minus 70 degrees Celsius) and to Saturn in mass.

Time and gas giants, solid moons, water-friendly planets

Science fact and fiction amateurs and experts liken Kepler-16b to the solar system's Saturn and to the Star Wars series' Tatooine, Jedi knight Luke Skywalker's homeland.

Kepler-16b's distance of 104,000,000 kilometers (64,622,604 miles) from its hosts makes it a gas giant, planet composed half of gas and half of ice and rock, within the outer limits of K-type, orange dwarf Kepler-16A's and M-type, red dwarf Kepler-16B's habitable zone of 55,000,000 to 106,000,000 kilometers (34,175,415.6 to 65,865,346.4 miles). Despite the above-mentioned reservations and daunting 490 light-years' (4,655,000,000,000,000 kilometers; 2,881,200,000,000,000 miles) distance from Earth, Kepler-16b numbers among celestial objects of interest since gravity-influenced orbital perturbations suggest a nearby moon or planet hospitable to life and liquid water.

artist's conception of Kepler-16b, a planet that, as with Star Wars' Tatooine, orbits two stars: NASA/JPL-Caltech/R. Hurt: NASA Blueshift (NASAblueshift), CC BY 2.0, via Flickr

Acknowledgment

My special thanks to talented artists and photographers/concerned organizations who make their fine images available on the internet.

Image credits:

Relax on Kepler-16b ~ The Land of Two Suns - Where your shadow always has company: NASA/JPL-Caltech, Public Domain, via NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory/Visions of the Future @ http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/visions-of-the-future/

artist's illustration of Kepler-16b as circumbinary planet ~ NASA/JPL-Caltech/T. Pyle: NASA Blueshift (NASAblueshift), CC BY 2.0, via Flickr @ https://www.flickr.com/photos/nasablueshift/6186885468/

artist's illustration of Kepler-16b, where the sun sets twice ~ NASA/JPL-Caltech/R. Hurt: NASA Blueshift (NASAblueshift), CC BY 2.0, via Flickr @ https://www.flickr.com/photos/nasablueshift/6186884146/

For further information:

Marriner, Derdriu. 11 February 2015. "HD 40307 g: One of Three Habitable Planet Image Releases by NASA in 2014." Earth and Space News. Wednesday.
Available @ https://earth-and-space-news.blogspot.com/2015/02/hd-40307-g-one-of-three-habitable.html

Marriner, Derdriu. 11 February 2016. "NASA Space Tourism Posters Tout Earth and Other Exotic Cosmic Locales." Earth and Space News. Thursday.
Available @ https://earth-and-space-news.blogspot.com/2016/02/nasa-space-tourism-posters-tout-earth.html