[Space Bites+] Moon Cities Are Not Happening. Here's Why
BONUS PART START AT 15:19
Watch here (with no ads) or on YouTube: https://youtu.be/hCgllDUvjMk
Interview with Martin Elvis about the Moon: https://youtu.be/CvFMw-kXIzs
Astronomy Cast video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZZdAB_hwPeA
Maybe we won’t be living on cities on the Moon. A fresh new crater on the Moon, and it’s a biggie. Roman perfect launch adds years to its mission. Did the Sun eat a planet? And in Space Bites+, Mercury is shrinking faster than we thought.
00:00 Intro
00:42 Problems for Moon Cities https://www.universetoday.com/articles/dont-get-your-hopes-up-for-a-city-on-the-moon
03:32 New Crater https://science.nasa.gov/solar-system/moon/nasas-moon-orbiter-spots-new-once-in-century-moon-crater/
04:44 Roman Mission Already Extended https://www.universetoday.com/articles/from-10-to-22-years-the-nancy-grace-roman-space-telescopes-mission-has-just-been-extended
https://science.nasa.gov/blogs/roman/2026/09/15/nasa-activates-romans-primary-instrument-checks-out-coronagraph/08:34 Black Hole Hair https://www.universetoday.com/articles/if-black-holes-have-hair-we-will-see-it-in-the-ringdown-of-their-mergers
10:23 Vote results 10:45 The Sun May Have Swallowed a Planet https://www.universetoday.com/articles/the-sun-may-have-swallowed-a-planet
13:17 Beauty by Webb https://www.universetoday.com/articles/webb-searches-for-brown-dwarfs-in-a-stunning-star-forming-region
15:19 BONUS STORY
17:40 Final thoughts
Comments (13)
Hi
Stop the presses please.. all I want to know about at this moment is this: https://science.nasa.gov/missions/hubble/hubble-sees-possible-runaway-black-hole-creating-a-trail-of-stars/ Imagine the Monte Python trebuchet but firing black holes instead of cows. As much as I would really want one of those to play with, probably best they're not available on Amazon. Follow up preprint at https://arxiv.org/abs/2512.04166?utm_source=chatgpt.com
Ooh Cotswolds, you fancy!
Fraser, Why don't you just get some icy asteroid and bring it to the moon? I swear you "scientists" just don't think things through enough.
Ok my serious comment is, I can’t see any cities in my lifetime, but I think it’s a surmountable problem if you are advanced enough to actually build a city on the moon. Maybe 3-400 years from now if we don’t wipe ourselves out. Research stations within 100.
3:12. I’d be astonished if we sustained an ongoing population of 100, much less 1,000 on the Moon, so by my lights, this is very promising news regarding the water content.
Hi Fraser, another great video. Hope you love the Cotswolds, Broadway is lovely, the Fish and Chip Shop is Excellent! If you want a dark sky spot complete with a Neolithic stone circle. Check out Rollright Stones.. Its 25 minute drive from Broadway. Have a great time.
My favorite story is The Martian Way by Asimov. The premise is that political changes on Earth cut off the supply of water to the Mars colony. The colonists respond by mounting a years long expedition to Saturn to bring back a mountain of ice. What are the technical challenges to actually doing this?
Without a science fiction magic wand (engines that break known physics), I'd expect a good part of challenge is getting there and back. Think of how much fuel it takes to launch a small rover to Mars from the Earth, if you have to go there, and come back (what Mar's return was going to do), that is hard. Add in the requirement that you need to bring back more water than it took to make the fuel to make the trip (meaning, than it took to make the fuel to get there and back), and I'm thinking you'll be in the negative. Using ION engines would help, getting water from Saturn's moons would also help, just mining that much water might would be a major challenge. Sounds like a plan to leave for Science Fiction. Considering how much water we think is on Mars still, they would do better digging. But if that isn't enough, with a long enough time horizon, maybe they could build a few space probes/tugs, and redirect some icy comets to mars and mine them in Mar's orbit, or have it land in an uninhabited part of Mars and mine the debris, but I think we're back to Science Fiction story lines for that to work.
Thank you Fraser for including UK imperial measurements 😊 . Hope your enjoying the beautiful Cotswolds !
Yes, but how far is that in imperial pints! He failed to mention.
Fraser, I understand JWST (or any telescope?) can see into the past by focusing one section of the sky for a long time. The longer, the further back. What is the limit and why?
The ultimate limit is the cosmic microwave background radiation that was released when the universe had cooled down to about the temperature of a red star about 380 000 years after the Big Bang.