Ceres is a dwarf planet in the main asteroid belt, comprising about one third the mass of the whole belt and being the sixth largest body in the inner solar system by mass and volume. It has a round planet-like shape and a surface gravitational acceleration about 2.8% that of Earth. Observations indicate that it contains large amounts of water ice, about 1/10 of the total water in Earth's oceans. Since humans on Earth today only use a tiny fraction of the amount of water in Earth's oceans (even when counting freshwater and defining "ocean water" as simply the opposite of H2O in the mantle), that would clearly be enough for a major colony. The solar flux of 150 W/m2 in aphelion, which is nine times smaller than that on Earth, is still high enough for solar power facilities (average solar fl
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| - Ceres is a dwarf planet in the main asteroid belt, comprising about one third the mass of the whole belt and being the sixth largest body in the inner solar system by mass and volume. It has a round planet-like shape and a surface gravitational acceleration about 2.8% that of Earth. Observations indicate that it contains large amounts of water ice, about 1/10 of the total water in Earth's oceans. Since humans on Earth today only use a tiny fraction of the amount of water in Earth's oceans (even when counting freshwater and defining "ocean water" as simply the opposite of H2O in the mantle), that would clearly be enough for a major colony. The solar flux of 150 W/m2 in aphelion, which is nine times smaller than that on Earth, is still high enough for solar power facilities (average solar fl
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| - Ceres is a dwarf planet in the main asteroid belt, comprising about one third the mass of the whole belt and being the sixth largest body in the inner solar system by mass and volume. It has a round planet-like shape and a surface gravitational acceleration about 2.8% that of Earth. Observations indicate that it contains large amounts of water ice, about 1/10 of the total water in Earth's oceans. Since humans on Earth today only use a tiny fraction of the amount of water in Earth's oceans (even when counting freshwater and defining "ocean water" as simply the opposite of H2O in the mantle), that would clearly be enough for a major colony. The solar flux of 150 W/m2 in aphelion, which is nine times smaller than that on Earth, is still high enough for solar power facilities (average solar flux is 180 W/m2, or 13% Earth's). The upcoming Juno mission to Jupiter, for example, will be relying on solar power in a location further out from the sun than Ceres.
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