Published 08:02 IST, October 30th 2019
NASA releases two new posters named the 'Galaxy of Horrors'
Right in time for the Halloween celebrations, NASA has released two new posters named 'Galaxy of Horrors' which celebrates some truly terrifying exoplanets.
Right in time for the Halloween celebrations, the United States premier space research organisation NASA has released two new posters celebrating some truly terrifying exoplanets. Exoplanets are planets that are present outside our solar system. NASA has aptly named these set of posters the 'Galaxy of Horrors'.
'The fun but informative series resulted from a collaboration of scientists and artists'
NASA via its website states that “the fun but informative series resulted from a collaboration of scientists and artists and was produced by NASA's Exoplanet Exploration Program Office, located at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California. The same program is behind the popular Exoplanet Travel Bureau poster series, which imagines humans visiting some of the thousands of known worlds outside our solar system.”
“Among the horrifyingly inhospitable worlds highlighted in the latest posters in HD 189733 b, a planet with an atmosphere full of silicates - the key component in sand and glass - and winds blowing at over 5,400 mph (6,700 kph). At those speeds, the silicates whipping through the air might create a perpetual storm of flying glass. If human or robotic explorers could travel 63 light-years from Earth to get there, they would never survive this planetary hellscape,” NASA added.
'Life as we know it could never form on these worlds'
According to NASA, “The second poster features three planets - Poltergeist, Draugr and Phobetor - orbiting the pulsar PSR B1257+12, located about 2,000 light-years from Earth. Sometimes called a "dead star," a pulsar is the remains of a star that has ceased burning fuel at its core and collapsed. But it isn't a quiet corpse. Like other pulsars, PSRB 1257+12 produces dual beams of intense radiation that can sometimes be seen across the galaxy. Stray radiation and high-energy particles would attack the three nearby planets. Life as we know it could never form on these worlds.”
"People are often most interested in finding exoplanets that could resemble Earth or potentially support life as we know it", stated Thalia Rivera, an outreach specialist at JPL who led the development of the new poster series who has been quoted by NASA. "But there are so many other amazing, mystifying planets out there that are completely unlike Earth and that show us the huge variety of ways planets can form and evolve. My favourite thing about exoplanets is how extreme they can get.”
NASA's Galaxy of Horrors trailer
Updated 08:28 IST, October 30th 2019