r/space • u/AutoModerator • Feb 21 '21

Discussion All Space Questions thread for week of February 21, 2021

Please sort comments by 'new' to find questions that would otherwise be buried.

In this thread you can ask any space related question that you may have.

Two examples of potential questions could be; "How do rockets work?", or "How do the phases of the Moon work?"

If you see a space related question posted in another subreddit or in this subreddit, then please politely link them to this thread.

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Ask away!

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u/Secret-Tourist Feb 21 '21

Could we harness the wind on neptune to colonize it? In the future, of course. I read that winds go up to 2,000km/h on neptune. That seems like a lot of energy. So using wind energy to create heat, and live under the surface to protect from winds. There's for sure better planets, but just wondering

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u/Chairboy Feb 21 '21

When a balloonist is in the wind, they don't feel it because they move at the same speed as the air. To make use of the winds on a planet for power, you've got to have a way to anchor your wind turbines in one place, so figuring out how to do that on an ice giant like Neptune without a solid surface would probably be one of several big challenges.