Visit TRAPPIST-1e: NASA Releases Travel Poster to Commemorate Discovery of 7 New Exoplanets

NASA is not only an expert when it comes to space explorations, but the agency has had a reputation of artistically bringing to life alien life concepts such as exoplanets, Mars and other celestial objects. The recent discovery of seven Earth-like planets is another opportunity for NASA to create a graphic representation of the potentially new worlds.

NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory released an image of TRAPPIST-1e, the small dwarf star found in the TRAPPIST-1 star system where seven new exoplanets orbiting a single star was discovered. NASA promoted the exoplanets as a "Star Trek" type of trip in the recent poster. The small dwarf star could be in the next habitable solar system, so humans may actually be able to go there in the future.

Just like NASA's former posters like the Mission to Mars recruitment lineup, the Trappist-1e poster follows the retro theme. Last. Feb. 22, NASA JPL released the image to commemorate the discovery of the seven new exoplanets. Experts say that three of them are located in the "habitable zone" and that most of them may even have liquid water on them; water being one of the most important building blocks of life.

"These seven rocky worlds huddle around their small, dim, red star, like a family around a campfire," according to NASA in the poster description. Any of them could harbor liquid water, but the planet showed here, fourth from the TRAPPIST-1 star, is in the habitable zone, the area around the star where liquid water is most likely to be detected."

The poster was wittingly labeled just like how travel agencies promote their most coveted locations. "Planet Hop From TRAPPIST-1e," the NASA poster said. "Voted Best 'Hab Zone' Vacation Within 12 Parsecs of Earth."

The TRAPPIST-1 system is located about 40 light-years away from Earth. Various telescopes worldwide such as NASA's Spitzer Telescope, ESA's Very Large Telescope (VLT) and the TRAPPIST telescope all collaborated to confirm that the transiting objects not too far from Earth are indeed part of a star system.