colonization

Aerospace Engineer Lives Underwater for 120 Days, Setting New World Record

Rudiger Koch spent around four months in a 322.9-square-foot capsule 36 feet below the surface of the water.

Biology Margherita Bassi Jan 27

The 485-year-old cannon discovered in southern Arizona.

Oldest Gun Found in the U.S. Tells the Story of a Forgotten Battle

Researchers discovered a bronze cannon that may have been used by Coronado, preceding the Second Amendment by 250 years.

Human History Isaac Schultz Nov 26

The Hork-Bajir Chronicles Was One of Animorphs‘ Most Powerful Books

Much as K.A. Applegate’s Animorph series tell a story about a group of kids bonding with one another while adventuring worlds and physically transforming into a variety of animals, the books are also an examination of the devastating impacts that ongoing wars, imperialism, and slavery have on societies. Though the human heroes were almost always…

io9 Charles Pulliam-Moore Jul 10

Image: Ryan Bodenheim, Michael Garland, Joe Sabino

Black Panther‘s Epic Space Opera Became a Story About the Power of Memory

Ta-Nehisi Coates’ current run on Black Panther thrust the nation of Wakanda into the far reaches of space and turned T’Challa into a resistance fighter in the midst of an epic war, the likes of which no one on Earth had ever witnessed. With the help of allies new and old, T’Challa has become the focal…

Books & Comics Charles Pulliam-Moore Apr 8

How Humanity Could Last Forever

Our species will face no shortage of existential risks in the coming decades, whether it be from nuclear war, climate change, a bioengineered pandemic, artificial superintelligence, molecular nanotechnology, or threats we have yet to conceive. Despair, cynicism, and misanthropy will get us nowhere, and we need to start thinking of practical ways to ensure the…

Human History George Dvorsky Mar 6

N.K. Jemisin Discusses the Tough Questions Far Sector’s New Green Lantern Asks About Policing

Because Sojourner “Jo” Mullein—the Green Lantern at the center of writer N.K. Jemisin and artist Jamal Campbell’s upcoming series Far Sector—is stationed countless lightyears away from Earth on a strange planet where emotion no longer exists, her humanity is one of the things that most makes her stand out. Being able to feel is what…

Books & Comics Charles Pulliam-Moore Sep 27

This New Space Colonization Novel Will Mess With Your Head In The Best Possible Way

Planetfall by Emma Newman isn’t what you’re expecting from a book about humans colonizing another planet. It’s much weirder, and in the end, a fair bit darker. This is a story about human failings—and the fact that we expect to understand alien beings, when we can’t even understand each other. Some spoilers ahead… In Planetfall,…

Books & Comics Charlie Jane Anders Nov 13

Alastair Reynolds Says What It’ll Take To Colonize Other Planets

The more we learn about exoplanets and the physics of interstellar travel, the more daunting the prospect of traveling to other stars appears. But in a new essay for Reuters, House of Suns author Alastair Reynolds lays out exactly what we’ll have to do to get to other solar systems. In a nutshell, we need…

io9 Charlie Jane Anders May 15

Kim Stanley Robinson Says Colonizing Mars Won’t Be As Easy As He Thought

Kim Stanley Robinson’s Mars trilogy filled us all with hope that we could terraform Mars in the 21st century, with its plausible description of terraforming processes. But now, in the face of what we’ve learned about Mars in the past 20 years, he no longer thinks it’ll be that easy. Talking to SETI’s Blog Picture…

Books & Comics Charlie Jane Anders Mar 13

A Stunning Alt-History Map Showing A Completely Uncolonized Africa

Amap created by Swedish artist Nikolaj Cyon shows what Africa would have looked like had it not been colonized by Europeans. Shown upside down to skew the Eurocentric bias, it was compiled using historical, linguistic, and ethnographic data. Cyon even created an alternative historical timeline to make it work. Check out BigThink’s fantastic feature about…

io9 George Dvorsky Nov 13

A Few Possible Ways That We Could Fund Interstellar Travel

Stephen Hawking argues in the recent book Starship Century that humans need to spread out into interstellar space in the next thousand years, or we’re doomed. So over at Forbes, Elise Ackerman lays out three scenarios in which we could pay the immense cost of interstellar colonization. Image via Merbel on CG Hub. In a…

io9 Charlie Jane Anders Nov 18

Architects envision an underground colony on Mars

When humans finally travel to Mars, what will their first buildings look like? ZA Architects envision an underground colony with spiderweb floors spun from basalt fibers. ZA’s proposal involves sending robots ahead of a human expedition to drill into the basalt-rich soil of Mars, creating caverns for underground human settlement. Human astronauts would then complete…

io9 Lauren Davis Sep 7

An Endangered Animal Sperm Bank Will Let Us Bring Pandas to Space

Whether or not you think that certain endangered animals are worth all the fuss— *cough*pandas*cough*—judging by the internet’s recent, excited tittering over a potential panda pregnancy, the majority of people are very much pro-animal kingdom diversity. So much so, in fact, that a team of Japanese scientists has begun freeze-drying certain endangered animals’ sperm in…

Space & Spaceflight Ashley Feinberg Aug 28

Martian Paradise: Mars Had Oxygen-Rich Atmosphere, 4 Billion Years Ago

Rocks collected by NASA’s Spirit rover on Mars show evidence of an oxygen-rich atmosphere some 3.7 billion years ago. This is a very strong indicator of life, with scientists describing the ancient Martian environment as “wet, warm and rusty.”

Sploid Ken Layne Jun 19

Could Helium-3 really solve Earth’s energy problems?

If you watched the movie Moon, you remember Helium-3 as the substance Sam Bell was sending back to Earth, during his onerous three year tenure on the Sarang lunar base. Helium-3 is not a piece of science fiction, but an isotope of helium that really could provide for all of our energy needs in the…

io9 Keith Veronese May 11

Ancient Americans helped colonize Easter Island long before the arrival of Europeans

Easter Island is the most remote place humans have ever colonized, and the fact we got there at all is a miracle. Now it looks like this island was colonized not once, not twice, but three entirely separate times. The first and most important wave of colonization was by Polynesians, who probably reached the island…

io9 Alasdair Wilkins Jun 7

Would you let NASA open a stable wormhole in our solar system?

Let’s face it: Faster than light travel may never be possible, and even near-light speeds may be a pipe dream. But what if we could open a wormhole, to let us jump to another solar system? Or travel in time? Suppose it’s 50 years from now, and NASA announces they have a way to open…

io9 Charlie Jane Anders May 20

Jumping robots with radioactive rockets could someday explore Mars

The craggy Martian terrain is daunting for wheeled probes, and Mars’ distance from Earth makes refueling rovers impossible. English scientists are exploring the possibility of harnessing radioactive isotopes and Mars’ abundant carbon dioxide to launch probes across the Martian landscape. Researchers at the University of Leicester are investigating the possibility of using radioisotopes that could…

io9 Cyriaque Lamar Nov 17

The fastest way to send humans to Mars is to not worry about bringing them back

All current plans to send human explorers to Mars suggest the first mission is 25 years away. But a one-way journey could actually be possible very soon, and it might be just what we need to kick-start human space exploration. That’s the only slightly crazy idea put forward by Washington State’s Dirk Schulze-Makuch and Arizona…

io9 Alasdair Wilkins Nov 15

Why isn’t NASA talking about the Hundred Year Starship?

Earlier this month, a NASA researcher mentioned the “Hundred Year Starship,” a plan to develop research and technology for one-way human space missions. But since then, all parties have been surprisingly mum on the subject. Why all the secrecy? During an event in San Francisco earlier this month, Pete Worden, director of NASA’s Ames Research…

io9 Lauren Davis Oct 30

colonization

Aerospace Engineer Lives Underwater for 120 Days, Setting New World Record

Oldest Gun Found in the U.S. Tells the Story of a Forgotten Battle

The Hork-Bajir Chronicles Was One of Animorphs‘ Most Powerful Books

Black Panther‘s Epic Space Opera Became a Story About the Power of Memory

How Humanity Could Last Forever

N.K. Jemisin Discusses the Tough Questions Far Sector’s New Green Lantern Asks About Policing

This New Space Colonization Novel Will Mess With Your Head In The Best Possible Way

Alastair Reynolds Says What It’ll Take To Colonize Other Planets

Kim Stanley Robinson Says Colonizing Mars Won’t Be As Easy As He Thought

A Stunning Alt-History Map Showing A Completely Uncolonized Africa

A Few Possible Ways That We Could Fund Interstellar Travel

Architects envision an underground colony on Mars

An Endangered Animal Sperm Bank Will Let Us Bring Pandas to Space

Martian Paradise: Mars Had Oxygen-Rich Atmosphere, 4 Billion Years Ago

Could Helium-3 really solve Earth’s energy problems?

Ancient Americans helped colonize Easter Island long before the arrival of Europeans

Would you let NASA open a stable wormhole in our solar system?

Jumping robots with radioactive rockets could someday explore Mars

The fastest way to send humans to Mars is to not worry about bringing them back

Why isn’t NASA talking about the Hundred Year Starship?

Musk Changes OpenAI Lawsuit So that If He Wins the $134 Billion, OpenAI’s Nonprofit Gets It

Pro-Iran Hackers Target Critical U.S. Energy and Water Infrastructure

‘She-Hulk’ Was Apparently One of Marvel’s Most Successful Shows

The World’s First Eye-Tracking Smart Glasses Are Intriguing and Unpolished

Noah Hawley Is Remaking ‘Terrified,’ Which Shouldn’t Happen

Unprecedented Observation Reveals 2 Supermassive Black Holes Locked in a Tight Death Spiral

This Apple MacBook Pro Is Now Under $500 After 78% Off, Grade-A Refurb Deal (16GB RAM, 1TB SSD, Touch Bar)

Anthropic Launches ‘Project Glasswing’ to Stealthily Spot Cybersecurity Issues for Rivals

Aqara Thermostat Hub W200 Review: Almost Better than My Ecobee

HP Omen Max 45L Review: 4K60 Gaming Has Never Been So Easy

Ecovacs Winbot W3 Omni Review: Window Cleaning Robots Have a Long Way to Go

AirPods Max 2 vs. Bose QuietComfort Ultra Headphones (2nd Gen): Which ANC Headphones Win?

The Best Gadgets of March 2026

AirPods Max 2 Review: Still Ridiculously Expensive and Ridiculously Nice

DJI Osmo 360 Review: The Best 360 Camera for the DJI-Pilled

Aqara Smart Lock U400 Review: Hands-free Unlocking at Its Best

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