Barnard's Star b: A redesign
An imaginary view of the surface of Barnard's Star b, the nearest exoplanet orbiting a single star.
Barnard b is probably a rocky Super-Earth, or more precisely a ,,Super-Titan" with a dense atmosphere, or maybe a Mini-Neptune. It revolves on an eccentric orbit far outside the habitable zone of its host star, a dim Red Dwarf. So the surface temperature is about -170° C. The planet receives only about 2% of the energy the earth receives from the sun, mostly at infrared wavelengths. At the distance of Barnard b, the planet is no longer tidally locked, there will be day and night.
Barnard's Star and its planet are about twice as old as the Solar system (7 to 10 billion years).
In my renders I decided to show a rocky ice-world with a dense atmosphere composed of mostly nitrogen and various gaseous hydrocarbons. The ice itself is also from different origin: mostly methane-ice but also traces of rock-hard frozen water. No signs of life as we know it.
The sky is almost always overcast. So it's mostly a deep twilight trough the day.
Very rarely, when Barnard's Star is clearly visible, the still blinding disc is less than half as big as the sun seen from earth, the dim light has a distinct yellowish tinge and
at midday it will be only about 1000 times as bright as the full moon (or about 300 Lux, if you like).
Such a moment I captured in my first render. Barnard's Star shines trough a cloud gap for a couple of minutes, revealing an alien landscape with vast snow- and ice-fields, mountains and rocks that reminds somehow of Antarctica on earth.
My second render depicts the identical scenery the same day around midday. Now the sky is overcast with dense and thick (hydrocarbon) cloud layers, absorbing most of the sunlight. For human eyes it's nearly dark; a dim, diffuse and almost monochromatic twilight.