Title: Week 8 Writing Assignment
Course: ASTRON103: The Evolving Universe: Stars, Galaxies, and Cosmology (001) DHH SU18 > Section: Week 8

Moving House

By now, you should have decided on a final destination exoplanet as part of your 4 Week Project – Escape to an Exoplanet; you will venture off to the planet you identified around Niav. For this assignment, you will describe a travel plan to move the first colony of humans from Earth to your target planet.

Tasks

1. Review the properties of your target exoplanet.
  1. How large is it in comparison to Earth?
  2. How far away is the planet from Earth? For this, you should consider the true planet and star, Kepler 452.
  3. How far away is the planet from its host star?
2. Devise a travel plan for how you will get there assuming you have a ship that can travel at 75% the speed of light.
  1. How long will the journey take?
  2. Will your crew be awake for the journey?
  3. What kind of supplies and resources will you take?
  4. How might you protect the crew from harmful radiation?
3. What might life be like on your target exoplanet?
  1. How long will a year be on the planet?
  2. Do you need to worry about harmful radiation while on the planet?

Note: We don't yet have the technology to travel to other stars at 75% the speed of light. So you are welcome to get creative with sci-fi ideas of your own that your crew will use. Just make sure you explain the science behind why that may be necessary!

Write Up

Your final write-up should be 1 - 2 pages in length (~800 words), uploaded as a Microsoft Word (.doc, .docx) or Portable Document Format (.pdf) file.  You must incorporate all of the points mentioned above in your written piece for full credit. You may (and are encouraged to) expand your piece to cover any other topics or issues you find interesting, but please limit the length to 2 pages.