“Project Hail Mary” landed in theaters this past Friday, and the movie has already begun to make waves in the box office. Adapted from science fiction Andy Weir’s novel of the same name, the story details an unlikely astronaut tasked with saving humanity from extinction. Weir uses real science and his own imagination to create worlds and lifeforms beyond our current understanding, and it begs the question: what’s really out there in space? Writers of the Life section have come together to share their thoughts on what planet they think humanity should blast off to in search of discovery.
Samantha Brody, she/her/hers, Life Editor, sab23059@uconn.edu
It’s easy to look at the stars and imagine what places humanity can eventually discover, but there’s a few places closer to home that I think are worth some further investigation. If we suddenly get the ability to jump light years across space like in “Star Wars,” my first pick is Jupiter.
We currently know that the great gas giant has about 100 moons, and while that’s a far cry from Saturn’s 285, it’s the content that matters. The original four Galilean moons (as in, those discovered by Galileo Galilei) are all bigger than Pluto and some have a solid chance of being the home to alien life, specifically Europa.
Furthermore, Jupiter’s Great Red Spot (a massive storm bigger than Earth) has been shrinking for some time now. NASA suspects that the main cloud layer of the storm is made of ammonia, which is also an important piece of alien life in “Project Hail Mary.” Who knows, maybe Weir was right!
Max Muller, he/they, Campus Correspondent, jyv24001@uconn.edu
If I were to pick the second planet that humanity should travel to, I wouldn’t actually pick a planet because the only correct choice is inhabiting the Sun. My reasoning is a little convoluted, but I think our future will likely mirror the evolution of plants.
Right now, humanity is like bacteria; the vast majority of our energy has to be produced manually and we are slow at collecting nutrients. In the future, I think that we will have “leaf” colonies stationed around the sun which share energy with the “roots,” which are settlements on different planets. By specializing these different colonies, we will more efficiently gain control of our future and the stars.
Jaylyn Davis, she/her/hers, Campus Correspondent, iue25001@uconn.edu
I feel like humanity can visit all the planets in the solar system. However, the planet humanity needs to visit is Venus. It may sound ironic since Venus is inhabitable for human beings, but Venus is inhabitable for a reason. For eons, Venus’s atmosphere has been dominated by carbon dioxide, causing its temperature to be as high as 900 degrees Fahrenheit. Because Venus is hot enough to melt lead, oceans are non-existent, the ground is nothing but rocks and the sky’s engulfed in thick cloud layers.
Why did I mention all this? Well, Earth’s currently on track to becoming Venus. For the past few decades, temperatures have been skyrocketing and the oceans have been getting warmer. This is because the use of fossil fuels is increasing the amount of carbon dioxide in Earth’s atmosphere. If humanity visits Venus, then they can physically see the damage that greenhouse gas emissions have done to the planet. When they see the damage, humanity might wake up and start crafting solutions to fight climate change and reduce greenhouse gas emissions to save Earth and its luscious environment.