NASA has released two horror movie-style posters for Halloween, celebrating two real exoplanets where the conditions would be frightful for any human. The agency has also made them downloadable so you can post them in your home, office, garage, or dorm.
One celebrates HD 189733 b — bright blue world that looks pretty from space, but hides a deadly secret.
“The nightmare world of HD 189733 b Presents ‘Rains of Terror,'” the poster reads. “It’s death by a million cuts on this slasher planet!”
Why a slasher planet? Its atmosphere is made up of mostly sand and glass. The winds are a gentle 5,400 mph.
“At those speeds, the silicates whipping through the air might create a perpetual storm of flying glass,” NASA said.
If you’re dying to go there, be ready for a 63-year-long trip at the speed of light. But, don’t expect to survive on that planet.
The second poster highlights three planets orbiting pulsar PSR B1257+12. A pulsar is the remains of a collapsed star, yet it still sends out dual beams of radiation. So the star is dead, but still active — an undead star.
That radiation plus high-energy particles regularly assault the three planets — Poltergeist, Draugr and Phobetor. Life, as we know it on Earth, could not form there.
“Planets caught in the horrifying grip of an undead star, PSR B1257+12 presents ‘Zombie Worlds,'” the poster reads.
NASA also had fun creating a horror movie trailer to accompany their posters.
“People are often most interested in finding exoplanets that could resemble Earth or potentially support life as we know it,” said Thalia Rivera, an outreach specialist at JPL. “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 favorite thing about exoplanets is how extreme they can get!”
