How Do We Settle on Ceres?
How might humanity go about establishing a colony on Ceres, the largest object in the Main Asteroid Belt?
How might humanity go about establishing a colony on Ceres, the largest object in the Main Asteroid Belt?
Welcome back to our series on Settling the Solar System! Today, we take a look at the closest celestial neighbor to Earth. That’s right, we’re taking a look at the Moon! Chances are, we’ve all heard about it more than once in our lifetimes and even have some thoughts of our own on the subject. …
The idea of colonization of Saturn’s moons is attractive and presents many benefits, even if it is a challenging and distant prospect.
Jupiter’s largest moons – aka. the Galilean Moons – could one day be colonized, providing humanity with limitless resources and incredible opportunities for research.
Though it is not considered as such, Mercury is actually a viable candidate for colonization – if you can get around the extreme conditions!
The idea of colonizing Mars has been explored at length, in fiction and as a real possibility. But what are the challenges and benefits of making Mars a “backup location” for humanity?
A twinset of icy asteroids called Mors-Somnus is giving planetary scientists some clues about the origin and evolution of objects in the Kuiper Belt. JWST studied them during its first cycle of observations and revealed details about their surfaces, which gives hints at their origins. That information may also end up explaining how Neptune got …
Continue reading “Webb Reveals Secrets of Neptune’s Evolution”
In 2008, astronomers with the SuperWASP survey spotted WASP-12b as it transited in front of its star. At the time, it was part of a new class of exoplanets (“Hot Jupiters”) discovered a little more than a decade before. However, subsequent observations revealed that WASP-12b was the first Hot Jupiter observed that orbits so closely …
Continue reading “This Hot Jupiter is Doomed to Crash Into its Star in Just Three Million Years”
Our gleaming Earth, brimming with liquid water and swarming with life, began as all rocky planets do: dust. Somehow, mere dust can become a life-bearing planet given enough time and the right circumstances. But there are unanswered questions about how dust forms any rocky planet, let alone one that supports life.
Universe Today has explored the potential for sending humans to Europa, Venus, Titan, and Pluto, all of which possess environmental conditions that are far too harsh for humans to survive. The insight gained from planetary scientists resulted in some informative discussions, and traveling to some of these far-off worlds might be possible, someday. In the …