If you’re tired and tired of Earth, you may not have to wait much longer to take a trip off the planet. A recent study published by Finnish astrophysicist Pekka Janhunen says it would be possible to establish a floating megacity on Ceres, a dwarf planet floating in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter. Janhunen not only laid out his plan on how a megacity could be built, but he suggests it could begin to take shape in the next decade and a half.
According to the newspaper entry (via New York Post), Ceres was chosen for its similar gravitational qualities, although it resides approximately 325 miles from Earth. In layman’s terms, NASA sent the spacecraft Alba there in 2007 and did not arrive until 2015.
“We select Ceres as the source body because type C asteroids are more likely to have enough nitrogen,” Janhunen wrote. “Nitrogen is a critical element because it is necessary for settlement atmospheres. We use a disk geometry for the megasatellite because its symmetry eliminates the tidal torque, so no reaction wheels are needed to maintain the “Habitats are illuminated by natural sunlight. Sunlight is collected from the disk by two flat mirrors tilted at a 45-degree angle and concentrated to the intensity desired by the parabolic mirrors.”
Its plan for the megacity includes a habitat built with thousands of cylindrical structures, each of which houses more than 50,000 people. These structures would rotate slowly and create artificial gravity on the surface of the satellite.
Using habitat-integrated “space elevators,” people living in the megacity could extract metals found in Ceres to build additional structures.
“The utility value of the megasatellite becomes evident if we compare it with traditional surface settlements. It would be technically possible to colonize the surface of Ceres using centrifugal habitats,” the astrophysicist added. “However, magnetic pads should carry the weight of the habitat. The weight is 34 times less than on Earth, but many orders of magnitude more than in the microgravity conditions of the megasatellite.”
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