Kepler-16b
Where your shadow always has company
This poster was the first one created for the Exoplanet Travel Bureau. The design inspiration for the series were the WPA’s posters for US National Parks in the 1930s and ‘40s.
Before cameras were in wide use, we had to illustrate faraway places, and we are now at a similar point in history! We can’t see the terrain of exoplanets just yet, but we can illustrate them.
Discovered in 2011, Kepler-16b was the first planet found by the Kepler Space Telescope that orbits two stars. It’s a gas giant, similar in size to Saturn.
You would have two shadows on a world with two suns. Because a gas giant would have no solid surface to stand on, we imagine this is the view from a nearby moon!!
Kepler-16b is nicknamed Tatooine, after Luke Skywalker’s home planet in "Star Wars."
This was the fastest poster to design; it came together in a matter of days.
The planet’s two stars influenced the color choices. Yellows and orange/reds, associated with the US Southwest, here indicate a different frontier.
