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NASA Dreams of Alien Worlds
When NASA's illustrators stretch their imaginations -- giving shape and color to what, say, a sunrise on another world -- their work offers brilliant notions of what vistas beyond our tiny corner of space might look like. See the full slideshow at LIFE.com.
- This artist's concept shows two scientists examining rock formations on the Red Planet. Many scientists say sedimentary deposits evident in Mars Global Surveyor images could contain fossils visible under ordinary magnification -- all the more reason to send exobiologists and geologists there.read moreNASA/Pat RawlingsShare
- The Hubble telescope found a long-sought population of stars that were tossed into the dark emptiness of space from their home galaxies. It's the first time stars have been discovered more than 300,000 light-years from the nearest big galaxy. Above is an illustration of the view of the nighttime sky from a hypothetical planet orbiting an 'outcast' star in the Virgo cluster of galaxies.read moreNASA/James Gitlin(STScI)Share
- This artist's concept depicts the pulsar planet system discovered by Aleksander Wolszczan in 1992. Wolszczan used the Arecibo radio telescope in Puerto Rico to find three planets -- the first of any kind ever found outside our solar system -- circling a pulsar named PSR B1257+12.read moreNASA/JPL-CaltechShare
- This artist's impression shows an infrared view of a gas-giant exoplanet passing by the face of its star. The planet, HD 189733b, lies 63 light-years away in the constellation Vulpecula, and was discovered in 2005 as it transited its parent star, dimming the star's light by some three percent.read moreNASA/ESA - C.CarreauShare
- In this artist's conception, a possible newfound planet spins in a nearby star's dusty, planet-forming disc. The possible planet, detected around the star CoKu Tau 4 by the Spitzer Space Telescope, is theorized to be at least as massive as Jupiter, and may have a similar appearance to what the giant planets in our own solar system looked like billions of years ago.read moreNASA/JPL-Caltech/R. Hurt (SSC-Caltech)Share
- New observations from NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope have revealed that mature planetary systems -- dusty disks of asteroids, comets, and possibly planets -- are more frequent around close-knit twin, or binary, stars than single ones like our own. That means sunsets like the one portrayed in this artist's photo concept might be quite commonplace in the universe. See more great NASA art at LIFE.com.read moreNASA/JPL-Caltech/R. Hurt (SSC)Share
- Published10 Images
NASA Dreams of Alien Worlds
When NASA's illustrators stretch their imaginations -- giving shape and color to what, say, a sunrise on another world -- their work offers brilliant notions of what vistas beyond our tiny corner of space might look like. See the full slideshow at LIFE.com.
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