Explore the plethora
of planets outside our solar system with new multimedia experiences from NASA's
Exoplanet
Exploration Program (ExEP). In addition to a new Exoplanet Travel
Bureau poster celebrating a molten world called 55 Cancri e, space fans can
enjoy a 360-degree visualization of the surface of the same planet, a
multimedia journey into the life and death of planetary systems, and a major
update to the popular Eyes on Exoplanets app.
Lava Life
Designed in
the style of vintage travel posters, ExEP's popular Exoplanet
Travel Bureau poster series imagines what it might be like to visit
known planets outside our solar system, or exoplanets
.
Focusing on 55
Cancri e, a planet that may be covered in a lava ocean, the newest
poster shows futuristic explorers gliding over the red-hot landscape
in a protective bubble.
55 Cancri e
is also now part of the Exoplanet Travel Bureau's 360-degree
visualization tool, which enables you to take a virtual tour of what
the planet's surface might look like, based on the limited data available (no
photos of the planet exist). Seen as a massive fiery orb on the horizon, the planet's
star is 65 times closer to 55 Cancri e than the Sun is to Earth. On the planet's
cooler nightside, silicate vapor in the atmosphere may condense into sparkling
clouds that reflect the lava below.
All
of the 360-degree visualizations are viewable on desktop computers, mobile
devices and through virtual reality headsets that work with smartphones.
Life and Death of a Solar System
How
did we get here? How do stars and planets come into being, and what fate awaits
planets after their stars die? The interactive web feature "Life and Death of a
Planetary System" brings readers on an in-depth journey through the formation,
evolution and eventual demise of a solar system. This multichapter story offers
insight into how the planet we call home formed and what will happen to it when
the Sun dies.
Planet Bonanza
Explore
thousands of new worlds, both strange and strangely familiar, with NASA's Eyes
on Exoplanets 2.0. Users can fly through the galaxy and virtually
visit any of the nearly 4,000 known exoplanets, all visualized in 3-D.
Interstellar ports of call include the TRAPPIST-1 system of seven Earth-sized
planets, the potentially molten-lava-covered 55 Cancri e, the egg-shaped
WASP-12b and Kepler-16b, the first world discovered orbiting two stars.
Among other features,
the searchable Eyes on Exoplanets 2.0 lets users compare an exoplanet's size to
that of Earth or Jupiter; determine how long it would take to travel to a given
planet by car, jet or light-speed starship; and interact with virtual models of
NASA space telescopes, such as Hubble, Spitzer, Kepler and the newly launched
Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS).
Eyes on Exoplanets 2.0 is powered by data from NASA's
Exoplanet Archive, the official database used by scientists researching
exoplanets. Available for use on desktop computers as well as most smartphones
and tablets, this next-generation, browser-based version of the popular app
requires no software download.
The
Exoplanet Travel Bureau was developed by NASA's Exoplanet Exploration Program
communications team and program chief scientists. Based at the agency's Jet
Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, which is a division of Caltech,
the program leads NASA's search for habitable planets and life beyond our solar
system. The program develops technology and mission concepts, maintains
exoplanet data archives and conducts ground-based exoplanet science for NASA
missions.
News Media Contact
Calla Cofield
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
626-808-2469
calla.e.cofield@jpl.nasa.gov
News Media Contact
Calla Cofield
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
626-808-2469
calla.e.cofield@jpl.nasa.gov
