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Curated Gallery posterS

Visions of the Future

Dec. 24, 2020
<p data-block-key="3vmlf">NASA&#x27;s Voyager mission took advantage of a once-every-175-year alignment of the outer planets for a grand tour of the solar system. The twin spacecraft revealed details about Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune – using each planet&#x27;s gravity to send them on to the next destination. Voyager set the stage for such ambitious orbiter missions as Galileo to Jupiter and Cassini to Saturn. Today both Voyager spacecraft continue to return valuable science from the far reaches of our solar system.</p>
The Grand Tour
<p data-block-key="15z8q">NASA&#x27;s Mars Exploration Program seeks to understand whether Mars was, is, or can be a habitable world. Missions like Mars Pathfinder, Mars Exploration Rovers, Mars Science Laboratory and Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, among many others, have provided important information in understanding of the habitability of Mars. This poster imagines a future day when we have achieved our vision of human exploration of Mars and takes a nostalgic look back at the great imagined milestones of Mars exploration that will someday be celebrated as “historic sites.”</p>
Mars
<p data-block-key="46jsn">There&#x27;s no place like home. Warm, wet and with an atmosphere that&#x27;s just right, Earth is the only place we know of with life – and lots of it. JPL&#x27;s Earth science missions monitor our home planet and how it&#x27;s changing so it can continue to provide a safe haven as we reach deeper into the cosmos.</p>
Earth
<p data-block-key="dkx2p">The rare science opportunity of planetary transits has long inspired bold voyages to exotic vantage points – journeys such as James Cook&#x27;s trek to the South Pacific to watch Venus and Mercury cross the face of the Sun in 1769. Spacecraft now allow us the luxury to study these cosmic crossings at times of our choosing from unique locales across our solar system.</p>
Venus
<p data-block-key="290pt">Ceres is the closest dwarf planet to the Sun. It is the largest object in the main asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter, with an equatorial diameter of about 965 kilometers. After being studied with telescopes for more than two centuries, Ceres became the first dwarf planet to be explored by a spacecraft, when NASA&#x27;s Dawn probe arrived in orbit in March 2015. Dawn&#x27;s ongoing detailed observations are revealing intriguing insights into the nature of this mysterious world of ice and rock.</p>
Ceres
<p data-block-key="jedzz">The Jovian cloudscape boasts the most spectacular light show in the solar system, with northern and southern lights to dazzle even the most jaded space traveler. Jupiter&#x27;s auroras are hundreds of times more powerful than Earth&#x27;s, and they form a glowing ring around each pole that&#x27;s bigger than our home planet. Revolving outside this auroral oval are the glowing, electric “footprints” of Jupiter&#x27;s three largest moons. NASA&#x27;s Juno mission will observe Jupiter&#x27;s auroras from above the polar regions, studying them in a way never before possible.</p>
Jupiter
<p data-block-key="l55gw">The discovery of Enceladus&#x27; icy jets and their role in creating Saturn&#x27;s E-ring is one of the top findings of the Cassini mission to Saturn. Further Cassini mission discoveries revealed strong evidence of a global ocean and the first signs of potential hydrothermal activity beyond Earth – making this tiny Saturnian moon one of the leading locations in the search for possible life beyond Earth.</p>
Enceladus
<p data-block-key="9orp7">Frigid and alien, yet similar to our own planet billions of years ago, Saturn&#x27;s largest moon, Titan, has a thick atmosphere, organic-rich chemistry and a surface shaped by rivers and lakes of liquid ethane and methane. Cold winds sculpt vast regions of hydrocarbon-rich dunes. There may even be cryovolcanoes of cold liquid water. NASA&#x27;s Cassini orbiter was designed to peer through Titan&#x27;s perpetual haze and unravel the mysteries of this planet-like moon.</p>
Titan
<p data-block-key="q3vok">Astonishing geology and the potential to host the conditions for simple life make Jupiter&#x27;s moon Europa a fascinating destination for future exploration. Beneath its icy surface, Europa is believed to conceal a global ocean of salty liquid water twice the volume of Earth&#x27;s oceans. Tugging and flexing from Jupiter&#x27;s gravity generates enough heat to keep the ocean from freezing. On Earth, wherever we find water, we find life. What will NASA&#x27;s Europa mission find when it heads for this intriguing moon in the 2020s</p>
Europa
<p>While there is much debate over which exoplanet discovery is considered the &quot;first,&quot; one stands out from the rest. In 1995, scientists discovered 51 Pegasi b, forever changing the way we see the universe and our place in it. The exoplanet is about half the mass of Jupiter, with a seemingly impossible, star-hugging orbit of only 4.2 Earth days. Not only was it the first planet confirmed to orbit a sun-like star, it also ushered in a whole new class of planets called Hot Jupiters: hot, massive planets orbiting closer to their stars than Mercury. Today, powerful observatories like NASA&#x27;s Kepler space telescope will continue the hunt of distant planets.</p>
51 Pegasi b
<p data-block-key="f9o9t">Twice as big in volume as the Earth, HD 40307g straddles the line between &quot;Super-Earth&quot; and &quot;mini-Neptune&quot; and scientists aren&#x27;t sure if it has a rocky surface or one that&#x27;s buried beneath thick layers of gas and ice. One thing is certain though: at eight time the Earth&#x27;s mass, its gravitational pull is much, much stronger.</p>
Superearth
<p data-block-key="ccj4i">Like Luke Skywalker&#x27;s planet &quot;Tatooine&quot; in Star Wars, Kepler-16b orbits a pair of stars. Depicted here as a terrestrial planet, Kepler-16b might also be a gas giant like Saturn. Prospects for life on this unusual world aren&#x27;t good, as it has a temperature similar to that of dry ice. But the discovery indicates that the movie&#x27;s iconic double-sunset is anything but science fiction.</p>
Kepler-16b
<p data-block-key="xfe3a">Kepler-186f is the first Earth-size planet discovered in the potentially &#x27;habitable zone&#x27; around another star, where liquid water could exist on the planet&#x27;s surface. Its star is much cooler and redder than our Sun. If plant life does exist on a planet like Kepler-186f, its photosynthesis could have been influenced by the star&#x27;s red-wavelength photons, making for a color palette that&#x27;s very different than the greens on Earth. This discovery was made by Kepler, NASA&#x27;s planet hunting telescope.</p>
Kepler-186f
<p>Discovered in October 2013 using direct imaging, PSO J318.5-22 belongs to a special class of planets called rogue, or free-floating, planets. Wandering alone in the galaxy, they do not orbit a parent star. Not much is known about how these planets come to exist, but scientists theorize that they may be either failed stars or planets ejected from very young systems after an encounter with another planet. These rogue planets glow faintly from the heat of their formation. Once they cool down, they will be dancing in the dark.</p>
PSO J318.5-22
<p data-block-key="i4hfp">Some 40 light-years from Earth, a planet called TRAPPIST-1e offers a heart-stopping view: brilliant objects in a red sky, looming like larger and smaller versions of our own moon. But these are no moons. They are Earth-sized planets in a spectacular planetary system outside our own. These seven rocky worlds huddle around their small, dim, red star, like a family around a campfire. Any of them could harbor liquid water, but the planet shown 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. This system was revealed by the TRAnsiting Planets and PlanetesImals Small Telescope (TRAPPIST) and NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope. The planets are also excellent targets for NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope. Take a planet-hopping excursion through the TRAPPIST-1 system.</p>
TRAPPIST-1e
<p data-block-key="7x0rm">Deep Space Atomic Clock Poster - red version</p>
Deep Space Atomic Clock - Red
<p data-block-key="a49gl">Deep Space Atomic Clock Poster - orange version</p>
Deep Space Atomic Clock - Orange
<p data-block-key="8ukwh">Deep Space Atomic Clock Poster - blue version</p>
Deep Space Atomic Clock - Blue
<p>A global ocean of lava under sparkling, silicate skies reflecting the lava below: what better choice for an extrreme vacation? Planet Janssen, or 55 Cancri e, orbits a star called Copernicus only 41 light years away. The molten surface is completely uninhabitable, but you&#x27;ll ride safely above, taking in breathtaking views: the burning horizon, Janssen&#x27;s sister planet Galileo hanging in a dark sky, and curtains of glowing particles as you glide across the terminator to Janssen&#x27;s dark side. Book your travel now to the hottest vacation spot in the galaxy, 55 Cancri e.</p>
55 Cancri e

JPL's Exoplanet Travel Bureau presents: Visions of the Future

Imagination is our window into the future. At NASA/JPL we strive to be bold in advancing the edge of possibility so that someday, with the help of new generations of innovators and explorers, these visions of the future can become a reality. As you look through these images of imaginative travel destinations, remember that you can be an architect of the future.

Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

Frequently Asked Questions


Can I get copies of these posters from NASA or JPL?
The images are free for you to print. Please consult the JPL Image Use Policy for further details.

Is it okay for me to print them out myself and display them?
Download the full size posters above so that you can print them and hang on your walls and share with us on Facebook or Twitter.

Do you have other sizes that you haven’t posted, or can you make new ones in a different size?
The current sizes on the website are what are currently available, which are 20 x 30 inches.

Background:
A creative team of visual strategists at JPL, known as "The Studio," created the poster series, which is titled "Visions of the Future." Nine artists, designers, and illustrators were involved in designing the 14 posters, which are the result of many brainstorming sessions with JPL scientists, engineers, and expert communicators. Each poster went through a number of concepts and revisions, and each was made better with feedback from the JPL experts.

David Delgado, creative strategy:
The posters began as a series about exoplanets -- planets orbiting other stars -- to celebrate NASA's study of them. (The NASA program that focuses on finding and studying exoplanets is managed by JPL.) Later, the director of JPL was on vacation at the Grand Canyon with his wife, and they saw a similarly styled poster that reminded them of the exoplanet posters. They suggested it might be wonderful to give a similar treatment to the amazing destinations in our solar system that JPL is currently exploring as part of NASA. And they were right!

The point was to share a sense of things on the edge of possibility that are closely tied to the work our people are doing today. The JPL director has called our people "architects of the future."

As for the style, we gravitated to the style of the old posters the WPA created for the national parks. There's a nostalgia for that era that just feels good.

Joby Harris, illustrator:
The old WPA posters did a really great job delivering a feeling about a far-off destination. They were created at a time when color photography was not very advanced, in order to capture the beauty of the national parks from a human perspective. These posters show places in our solar system (and beyond) that likewise haven't been photographed on a human scale yet -- or in the case of the exoplanets might never be, at least not for a long time. It seemed a perfect way to help people imagine these strange, new worlds.

Delgado:
The WPA poster style is beloved, and other artists have embraced it before us. Our unique take was to take one specific thing about the place and focus on the science of it. We chose exoplanets that had really interesting, strange qualities, and everything about the poster was designed to amplify the concept. The same model guided us for the posters that focus on destinations in the solar system.

Lois Kim, typography:
We worked hard to get the typography right, since that was a very distinctive element in creating the character of those old posters. We wanted to create a retro-future feel, so we didn't adhere exactly to the period styles, but they definitely informed the design. The Venus poster has a very curvy, flowy font, for example, to evoke a sense of the clouds.

Creative Strategy:
Dan Goods, David Delgado

Illustrators:

The Grand Tour

Delgado:
The Grand Tour is the route the Voyager 2 spacecraft took to visit all four outer planets. We imagined this would be something people might want to repeat, since it's a flight plan that's possible every 175 years or so, when the outer planets are arranged just right. In the future, it might be considered "quaint" to experience a gravity assist.

Harris:
Style-wise, the design came from some references we looked at from transparency overlays from the 1960s. It initially had a black background, but we inverted it and the design just clicked.


Mars

Delgado:
This was the very last poster we produced for the series. We wanted to imagine a future time where humans are on Mars, and their history would revere the robotic pioneers that came first.

There are a few fun things to point out here. You can see the silhouette of Olympus Mons in the background, there's a hint of underground water, and the rover's wheel is spelling out JPL on the ground in Morse code, just like the Curiosity rover does (for what the rover drivers call "visual odometry.")


Venus

Harris:
We tried a few different designs for Venus, starting with the surface, but the intent was to show things people might find pleasant, and Venus' surface is anything but.

Kim:
The scene is of a city in the clouds during a transit of Mercury across the sun. The Morse code for the number 9 is written on the side (signifying the inhabitants are "on cloud 9").


Ceres

Delgado:
The big sign in this poster is inspired by the gateway in Reno that announces it as "the biggest little city in the world." We kind of thought that might suit Ceres. It's the biggest object in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter and probably has a lot of water ice underground.

Harris:
We designed all of these posters as a group, and liked the way this looked with a very muted color palette.


Jupiter

Delgado:
The basis for this poster was a Jupiter cloudscape by artist Ron Miller, who was very gracious in allowing us to modify his painting. In talking with a lead scientist on NASA's Juno mission (which is getting to Jupiter in July), we locked onto his description of the brilliant auroras Jupiter has. It would truly be a sight to see.


Enceladus

Delgado:
Saturn's moon Enceladus is all about the plumes erupting from its south pole. At our first brainstorming session, someone called the plumes "Cold Faithful," and that helped crystallize this idea quite quickly.

There's no right way up in space, so for fun, we turned the surface upside down from the point of view of the visitors in the picture.

Kepler-186f

Harris:
The concept here was about how plants might be very different colors on planets around other stars, since the star's spectrum of light would be different. So we played on an old saying, with "the grass is always redder on the other side of the fence."

There's whimsy in the design, making people wonder why there would be this white picket fence on an alien planet.

HD 40307g | Super Earth

Delgado:
As we discussed ideas for a poster about super Earths -- bigger planets, more massive, with more gravity -- we asked, "Why would that be a cool place to visit?"

We saw an ad for people jumping off mountains in the Alps wearing squirrel suits, and it hit us that this could be a planet for thrill-seekers.

Kepler-16b

Harris:
This was the first poster we designed in the series. The concept was really clear from the very beginning and set the tone for everything that came after. When we showed it to the scientists, the only thing they wanted us to tweak was to make the color of one of the stars (and the shadow it casts) different from the other star.

PSO J318.5-22

Harris:
This design fell right out of the tagline, "where the nightlife never ends," which was perfect for a wandering planet that has no star.

We wanted to evoke a sense of elegance, so we leaned heavily on 1930s art deco for this one. It's sort of retro-future fantasy, but again, there's a bit of real science inspiring it.