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12/22/2024 11:30:41 pm

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NASA's Brilliant Space Travel Posters Invite You to Explore Earth-like Exoplanets

Kepler space travel posters

(Photo : NASA/JPL-Caltech) These space travel posters pay tribute to Kepler's roster of newly-found Earth like exoplanets.

NASA's Kepler spacecraft, which also serves as a space observatory searching for exoplanets, has discovered its 1,000th exoplanet outside the solar system.

To pay homage to these incredible space milestones, NASA presented a series of wonderfully depicted space travel posters for Kepler's newly found Earth-like exoplanets that encourages us humans to visit alien worlds in the near future. 

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Scientists believe that Kepler 186-f can sustain life since it's about the same size as the Earth and is in orbit in the habitable zone, which is the distance from its star that allows liquid water to form on its surface. This exoplanet's star is red, meaning the colors we see here on Earth will not be the same on 186-f.

Another Earth-like planet called HD 40307g is not as habitable as 186-f but its surface is also as rocky as the Earth's. This planet is larger than the Earth, about twice the size and possesses eight times more mass, indicative of stronger gravity.

The third planet is Kepler-16b that orbits around two stars in a binary star system. This particular exoplanet is apparently a gas planet similar to Saturn. Its temperature can be compared to dry ice.

The Kepler spacecraft is also a space telescope that hunts for exoplanets in distant star systems. When a planet move in front of its star, it causes the star's brightness to change a little bit making it dimmer than usual. When this change occurs, the spacecraft measures this changed brightness and confirms if this object is truly a planet in front of its sun.

To date, Kepler has found 1,004 confirmed exoplanets and is still searching for more beyond the cosmos. Its positioning wheels failed last year but scientists found a way to fix this problem by using radiation pressure from the Sun to position the telescope.

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