Exoplanets and Star Travel

008-Antares-Five
008-Antares-Five
Hypothetical planet orbiting the red giant star. A white dwarf companion fills shadows with violet light. Oil on masonite, 1973. © Don Dixon
077-Interstellar-Probe
077-Interstellar-Probe
a giant starship is assembled high above the moon ; acylic and gouache on illustration board, 1976 © Don Dixon
081-Binary-Sun
081-Binary-Sun
In this pre Star Wars painting, two suns blaze in the sky of a desert world. Tidal forces distort their shapes ; gouache on illustration board, 1976 © Don Dixon
083-Colliding-Galaxies
083-Colliding-Galaxies
spiral galaxies herald the dawn on an imaginary planet ; acrylic and gouache on illustration board, 1985 © Don Dixon
171-Barnards-Star

171-Barnards-Star

Barnard's Star - 6 light years away, might serve as a dim orange sun for a family of planets © Don Dixon

174-Marching-Forest
174-Marching-Forest
Marching Forest - on the imaginary tidally-locked planet Thraxisp, a forest grows in waves toward the source of its energy, the gas giant primary that is perched eternally on the horizon. © Don Dixon
175-Ice-World-1

175-Ice-World-1

Ice World 1 - a frozen planet of a red dwarf star glistens in its deceptively warm glow © Don Dixon

177-Thraxisp
177-Thraxisp
Thraxisp - a hypothetical habitable satellite of an extrasolar gas giant, developed with Larry Niven, William Hartmann, Joel Hagen, Rick Sternbach, Paul Preuss, and Pat Ortega as part of a world-building project in 1980. Acrylic on illustration board. © Don Dixon
178-Sentinels-Of-Antares
178-Sentinels-Of-Antares
Sentinels Of Antares - pillars of salt encrust the bed of an ocean that boiled away when the planet's sun became a red giant © Don Dixon
179-Red-Dwarf-Rising
179-Red-Dwarf-Rising
Red Dwarf Rising - a red dwarf star rises behind alien towers, detail of cover of Paul J. McAuley novel 400 Billion Stars © Don Dixon
203-Daedalus-Staging
203-Daedalus-Staging
An interstellar probe drops its exhausted first stage somewhere between the stars © Don Dixon
368-u-Andromedae.jpg

Extrasolar planets of Upsilon Andromeda - comparison of orbits with our own solar system ; painting by Don Dixon for Scientific American

444-hot-jupiter
444-hot-jupiter
Many of the extrasolar planets that have been discovered are several times bigger than jupiter and orbit so near their parent stars that solar wind would blow their atmospheres away like comet tails. Digital painting © 2007 Don Dixon/cosmographica.com
459-super-jovian-forming

459-super-jovian-forming

A giant planet is distorted by its rapid spin during the final stages of accretion. Tidal interactions with other planets and its parent star, as well as internal friction, will eventually cause it to lose energy and become more spherical. Artwork © 2007 Don Dixon / cosmographica.com

466-extrasolar-planet-Gliese581c-far-view

466-extrasolar-planet-Gliese581c-far-view

Early candidate for a habitable extrasolar planet shown in orbit around its parent red dwarf star. © Don Dixon

467-extrasolar-planet-Gliese581c-subsolar

467-extrasolar-planet-Gliese581c-subsolar

If the planet is tidally locked, with the same face turned permanently toward its sun, any ocean near the subsolar point would likely simmer under a perpetual haze of steam. Weather patterns might tend to radiate from this equatorial teakettle. Digital artwork © 2007 Don Dixon / cosmographica.com

468-extrasolar-planet-Gliese581c-surface
468-extrasolar-planet-Gliese581c-surface
The extrasolar planet Gliese 581c is slightly larger than earth and orbits in the habitable zone of its star. The "Twilight Zone" near the boundary between day and night might afford a temperate climate. The sun would be fixed in place near the horizon, however, and plants might tend to grow in waves, struggling for sunlight, with fallow regions in the shadowlands between crests of forest vegetation. Digital artwork © 2007 Don Dixon / cosmographica.com
479-Red-Dwarf-Seen-From-Desert-Super-Earth
479-Red-Dwarf-Seen-From-Desert-Super-Earth
479_Red_Dwarf_Seen_From_Desert_Super_Earth A red dwarf star hovers eternally on the horizon of a nearby-orbiting earthlike world. The planet, tidally locked toward its sun, is much older than Earth and its surface has been eroded by fierce winds that howl across the border between eternal day and eternal night. Copyright 2011 by Don Dixon / cosmographica.com
480-Orbital-View-Of-Super-Earth
480-Orbital-View-Of-Super-Earth
A red dwarf emerges from eclipse behind a planet twice Earth's mass orbiting in the red dwarf's narrows habitable zone. An interior planet transits the sun. Copyright 2011 Don Dixon / cosmographica.com
482 Deadalus Starship in flight
482 Deadalus Starship in flight
A crewed starship based on the British Interplanetary Society's 1970's Daedalus design fires its nuclear pulse engine in interstellar space. The engine, capable of producing 0.01 gravity acceleration, boosts the ship to 10 percent the speed of light after ten years of thrust. © Don Dixon
490-starship-arrives-alpha-centauri-2
A habitat two miles across arrives to orbit a hypothetical earthlike planet orbiting the star Alpha Centauri after a 50-year voyage. The discarded braking stage of the giant starship drifts in the far background. The bright star below the planet is our sun, 4.3 light years away. Variation of a cover illustration for Astronomy Magazine, July 2012. © Don Dixon

starship plan

A starship 10 miles long, capable of reaching the nearest star, Alpha Centauri, is depicted in this illustration created for the July, 2012 issue of Astronomy Magazine. To eliminate the structural stress and high-velocity ablation of interstellar gas and dust during tthe deceleration phase, the ship is designed so no turnaroung maneuver is necessary. The central torus is the "seed" of this vessel, rotating at 1 revolution per minute to create centrifugal gravity for the travelers.

055-Zeta-Aurigae
Zeta Aurigae - red supergiant star over a desolate planet. A blue companion star casts a second shadow ; gouache on illustration board ; © Don Dixon, 1975
057-Mira
Mira is a giant variable star that swells and shrinks like a fiery heart, taking 332 days per "beat" ; gouache on illustration board, 1976 © Don Dixon

501-starshade-exoplanet-telescope

A space telescope observes planets orbiting a distant star whose glare has been blocked by a flower-shaped screen the size of a football field. In reality, the starshade would be almost as far from the telescope as the moon is from earth. digital, copyright Don Dixon 2016.

502-high-definition-space-telescope-starshade

The High Definition Space Telescope is almost twice the size of a tennis court. By using a football-field-sized shade to block the light from distant stars, the HDST could directly observe exoplanets; digital, copyright Don Dixon 2016

489-starship-arrives-alpha-centauri-1b

A habitat two miles across arrives to orbit a hypothetical earthlike planet orbiting the star Alpha Centauri after a 50-year voyage. The discarded braking stage of the giant starship drifts in the far background. The bright star below the planet is our sun, 4.3 light years away. Interior illustration for Astronomy Magazine, July 2012. © Don Dixon

021-Antares-Rising
As the red giant star Antares swells to engulf its inner planets, once frozen outer worlds thaw, perhaps to serve as temporary havens for life. Oil on Masonite panel, 1973. © Don Dixon