Related papers: Inflatable Dome for Moon, Mars, Asteroids and Sate…
This paper presents the first structured evaluation of Solar System bodies hypothetically relocated to Earth orbit (1 AU) to assess their potential as alternative habitats. Using comparative criteria, planetary size and gravity, atmospheric…
The outer solar system may provide a potential habitat for extraterrestrial life. Remote sensing data from the Galileo spacecraft suggest that the jovian icy moons, Europa, Ganymede, and possibly Callisto, may harbor liquid water oceans…
The authors suggest a low cost closed AB-Dome, which may protect small cities such as Sederot from rockets, mortar shells, chemical and biological weapons. The offered AB-Dome is also very useful in peacetime because it protects the city…
The martian atmosphere hosts dynamical phenomena ranging from planet-encircling dust storms to mesoscale orographic clouds and nocturnal low-level jets. General circulation model show capability to simulate these phenomena, but is…
Performing orbital insertion around Mars using aerocapture instead of a propulsive orbit insertion manoeuvre allows to save resources and/or increase the payload mass fraction. Aerocapture has never been employed to date because of the high…
As humans venture deeper into space, the need for a lunar settlement, housing the first group of settlers, grows steadily. By means of new technologies such as in situ resource utilisation (ISRU) as well as computational design, this goal…
Earth, Mars, and Venus, irradiated by an evolving Sun, have had fascinating but diverging histories of habitability. Although only Earth's surface is considered to be habitable today, all three planets might have simultaneously been…
Exomoons around free-floating planets (FFPs) can survive their host planet's ejection. Such ejections can increase their orbital eccentricity, providing significant tidal heating in the absence of any stellar energy source. Previous studies…
High obliquity planets represent potentially extreme limits of terrestrial climate, as they exhibit large seasonality, a reversed annual-mean pole-to-equator gradient of stellar heating, and novel cryospheres. A suite of 3-D global climate…
Standard definitions of habitability assume that life requires the presence of planetary gravity wells to stabilize liquid water and regulate surface temperature. Here the consequences of relaxing this assumption are evaluated. Temperature,…
A recently advanced argument against the atmospheric greenhouse effect is refuted. A planet without an infrared absorbing atmosphere is mathematically constrained to have an average temperature less than or equal to the effective radiating…
In the spirit of minimal modeling of complex systems, we develop an idealized two-column model to investigate the climate of tidally locked terrestrial planets with Earth-like atmospheres in the habitable zone of M-dwarf stars. The model is…
With the detection of extrasolar moons (exomoons) on the horizon, it is important to consider their potential for habitability. If we consider the circumstellar Habitable Zone (HZ, often described in terms of planet semi-major axis and…
Terraforming Mars can be evaluated with a set of system-level constraints linking (i) target pressures & compositions to required atmospheric inventories, (ii) target surface temperatures to the required radiative control, (iii) inventories…
The habitable fraction of a planet's surface is important for the detectability of surface biosignatures. The extent and distribution of habitable areas is influenced by external parameters that control the planet's climate, atmospheric…
We present a simplified model of the atmosphere of a terrestrial planet as an open two-dimensional system described by an ideal gas with velocity $\vec{v}$, density $\rho$ and temperature $T$ fields. Starting with the Chern-Simons equations…
We analyse a megasatellite settlement built from Ceres materials in high Ceres orbit. Ceres is selected because it has nitrogen, which is necessary for an earthlike atmosphere. To have $1 g$ artificial gravity, spinning habitats are…
Author offers and researched the new and revolutionary inflatable electrostatic AB space towers (mast, new space elevator) up to one hundred twenty thousands kilometers (or more) in height. The main innovation is filling the tower by…
Over the past decades, global geodynamical models have been used to investigate the thermal evolution of terrestrial planets. With the increase of computational power and improvement of numerical techniques, these models have become more…
With the use of the appropriate technology, such as photovoltaics and seawater desalination, humans have the ability to sustainably increase their production of food and energy while minimising detrimental impacts on the Earth system.