Kepler-186f: NASA Poster Images of Planets Outside the Solar System in 2014

Summary: NASA's fictitious Exoplanet Travel Bureau promotes Kepler-186f as an exoplanet "where the grass is always redder on the other side."

NASA Exoplanet Travel Bureau poster of Kepler-186f: 1930s Works Progress Administration retro-style poster by NASA/JPL-Caltech, Public Domain, via NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory/Visions of the Future

Poster images of planets outside the solar system

Slogans of "Experience the gravity of a Super Earth," "Where the grass is always redder on the other side" and "Where your shadow always has company" on Art Deco-like, Works Progress Administration-reminiscent (April 8, 1935 to June 30, 1943) prints announce as tomorrow's space tourist destinations three of eight extra-solar system planets highlighted by the Kepler telescope since the space observatory's launching March 7, 2009. They bring the responsibilities of Exoplanet Travel Bureau agents to the position descriptions of David Delgado and Joby Harris, visual strategists who ideate the posters through the National Aeronautics and Space Agency's Jet Propulsion Laboratory at Pasadena's California Institute of Technology. They communicate in pithy phrases the trio's potential tourist draws.

Red heating and lighting from red dwarf stars

Red possibly describes the color in which its parent star bathes Kepler-186f. Kepler-186f emerges as one of four planets orbiting M1-type, red dwarf Kepler-186, of 1,800 confirmed exo-planets and of 20-plus exoplanets within their host's life-friendly, liquid water-sustaining zone.

Scientists find Kepler-186f the only Earth-sized, extra-solar system, habitable zone-orbiting planet. They give it the nickname of Earth's cousin even though the exo-planet's atmosphere, mass and resources remain unknown. They have the lingering suspicion of Earth-like atmospheric and surface configurations ensuing from Earth-like sizes since the bigger masses of greater-sized planets, such as the solar system's Jupiter and Saturn, entail stronger gravity and thicker shrouds of helium and hydrogen gases unfriendly to Earth-like land- and life-forms.

Spatial, technological and temporal challenges to understanding Kepler-186f

A substantial hindrance to observing K-186f's composition is the overlap between astronomical address and technological limitations.

Scientists judge the Earth to Kepler-186f distance at 490 light-years (4,655,000,000,000,000 kilometers, 2,881,200,000,000,000 miles) since the exoplanet lies within the swan-like constellation Cygnus. They know that tomorrow's technology approximates light's speed and specifies evolution's significance for higher emissions of solar flares and radiation, for lower incidences of stellar energy, at 30 percent, and light, at 25 percent, from a parent star 50 percent less massively sized and 4 percent less luminous than the sun, for Mercury-equivalent distances of 32,500,000 miles (52,400,000 kilometers), for non-existent radio-transmitted responses to Allen Telescope Array searches on 1 to 10 GHz and for shorter orbits of every 129.9459 days.

Traces in orbits of Kepler-186f's same-made, same-sized companion?

The situation looks daunting for orbits of four days by Kepler-186b, of seven days by Kepler-186c, of 13 days by Kepler-186d and of 22 days by Kepler-186e.

Kepler-186f's four companions may be too close, too hot and too tidally locked. Whether Kepler-186f likewise experiences no day and night cycles, keeps one side host-ward or undergoes no seasonal changes nears 50-50 odds among science's best guessers. Scientists nevertheless opine optimistically for Kepler-186f. They point to methods by which eligible exo-planets are discovered: a host star's dimming by an orbiter's transit, as in Kepler-186f's discovery April 17, 2014, and orbital perturbations suspected by two small planets between Kepler-186e and Kepler-186f and from a larger planet beyond Kepler-186f.

artist's concept of Kepler 186f, first earth-size planet in a star's habitable zone: NASA Ames/Seti Institute/JPL-Caltech, Public Domain, via NASA

Acknowledgment

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

Image credits:

NASA Exoplanet Travel Bureau poster of Kepler-186f, where the grass is always redder on the other side: 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 concept of Kepler-186f as first known earth-size planet in habitable zone of its star, red dwarf Kepler-186: NASA Ames/Seti Institute/JPL-Caltech, Public Domain, via NASA @ http://www.nasa.gov/ames/kepler/nasas-kepler-discovers-first-earth-size-planet-in-the-habitable-zone-of-another-star/#.VN4jOfnF8mO

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. 12 February 2015. "Kepler-16b: One of Three Habitable Planet Image Releases by NASA in 2014." Earth and Space News. Thursday.
Available @ https://earth-and-space-news.blogspot.com/2015/02/kepler-16b-one-of-three-habitable.html