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If ever there was a destination worthy of a winter getaway, then it’s Kepler-16b, “the land of two suns”.
The planet, discovered in 2011, is one of three exoplanets (planets that orbit a star other than our sun), depicted in a series of striking vintage-style travel posters produced by Nasa’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory.
Created by the space agency’s visual strategists Joby Harris, David Delgado and Dan Goods, the posters feature art-deco typography, bold colours and classic design, evocative of the golden age of travel.
Speaking to Newsweek, Delgado explained how they had felt inspired by the fact that so many new planets are being discovered; this week Nasa announced that its Kepler Space Telescope had made its 1,000th exoplanet discovery.
“It feels like we’re living in the future, or science fiction is coming to life,” he said. “We thought it would be really cool to explore the characteristics of each planet through the context of travel.”
The posters, credited to the fictional Exoplanet Travel Bureau, feature wry slogans playing on the characteristics of each planet. The dual-star planet Kepler-16b, for example, is “where your shadow always has company”.
Kepler-186f, discovered in April 2014 and a place notable for its red-wavelength rays, is pitched as the place “where the grass is always redder on the other side”.
The third planet to be depicted is HD 40307g, a “super earth” eight times the mass of our home planet, which boasts a “much, much stronger” gravitational pull. The poster features a person in a wingsuit plunging towards its surface.
But whether prospective tourists are drawn by the poster, or its gravity, at 44 light years away, it may be a trip to save for the future.
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