Humans colonizing the asteroid belt might sound like sci-fi – The Expanse, to be exact – but Pekka Janhunen, an astrophysicist with the Finnish Meteorological Institute, wants to make it a reality. He recently published a paper theorizing about the feasibility of a “megasatellite” settlement, tethering together tens of millions of square miles of habitats, high in the orbit of dwarf planet, Ceres.

Located hundreds of millions of miles from Earth, Ceres is found in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter. Even powerful telescopes have difficulty getting a clear image of its surface. Janhunen envisions using its resources to build rotating habitats that generate artificial gravity by completing a full rotation every 66 seconds. A 636-mile elevator cable would help bring supplies from Ceres to the settlements.

“Ceres has nitrogen for making the habitat atmospheres, and it is large enough to provide almost unlimited resources,” Janhunen told Universe Today. Each habitat would be similar to the population density of the Netherlands (around 13,000 people per square mile), with the 56,700 residents getting around 21,500 square feet of space, each.

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The habitat would have both rural and urban spaces. Strategically aimed mirrors would help provide sunlight, though the urban areas would be artificially lit and windowless. In addition to a way to shield inhabitants from radiation, these floating worlds would need oxygen.

Janhunen told LiveScience construction could begin within 15 years, and it would take another 22 years on top of that to actually build the elevator, power system, and habitats. It would be an enormous undertaking, and Florida Institute of Technology astrobiologist Manasvi Lingam foresees a few potential issues with Janhunen’s timeline.

"The first is a question of other essential elements, other than nitrogen,” Lingam told LiveScience. It’s not clear how inhabitants would get something like phosphorus, for example.

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The 22-year estimate also assumes the operation runs smoothly, something even Janhunen isn’t sure about. “It is likely, of course, that the actual bootstrapping timescale would be longer, or much longer, and instead of physics, it would be driven by technological delays and the logistics of transporting the inhabitants from Earth,” he wrote in the paper. Another potential issue for the habitats are asteroids, though Janhunen thinks it would be easy enough to move the habitat out of its path or evacuate residents to safety.

In 2015, the Dawn space probe orbited around the protoplanet, gathering most of the information we have on its topography. Dawn’s images were illuminating, but much about Ceres is still unknown. A recent Astronomy article about the dwarf planet is full of words like "mystery, hints," and is unclear. The first residents would have a lot to learn before starting construction in its orbit.

For more on space news, read the details of how possible signs of life on Venus were detected back in 1978, and that scientists claim they found evidence of a parallel universe where time runs backward. Studies also recently found the Moon is rusting, and it may be Earth's fault.

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— Sonic the Hedgehog (@SonicMovie) February 10, 2021

@McDonalds @Pokemon I sure hope you do some form of inventory control for your promo Pokémon cards as some of your stock is being sold in sealed boxes which means they’re not even making it to your stores Though same thing happened with Tim Hortons Hockey too. Retail $1.99 pic.twitter.com/kX8qZyRX2V

— redphoenixsportscards (@redphoenixcards) February 9, 2021

My mom works at a McDonalds in southern Indiana, and her store is limited to only selling 5 packs per person per day, because someone bought 3 cases (around 450~ packs) from another area store, which was all they had

— Jake Jacobson (@Th3Composer) February 9, 2021

Super Mario 3D World will be re-released on the Nintendo Switch on February 12, 2021, with a new addition in Bowser's Fury. You can read our review below, or check out what other critics thought in our review roundup. We also have a breakdown of how long it takes to beat and how it works with Amiibo.

Super Mario 3D World + Bowser's Fury is a candy confection of fine-tuned platforming that marries some of the best elements of 2D and 3D Mario in two very different ways. The package is mostly a re-release of a Wii U game, but this version upgrades the original with a faster pace and online play, and then adds the experimental and gloriously strange Bowser's Fury on top of it.

The two experiences are bifurcated to the point where you need to quit out of one completely to start the other. This makes sense--the two share some superficial traits but are otherwise very different design philosophies and platforming approaches. Because of this very split design, though, it only makes sense to examine them as separate games.

Super Mario 3D World + Bowser's Fury is a candy confection of fine-tuned platforming that marries some of the best elements of 2D and 3D Mario in two very different ways. The package is mostly a re-release of a Wii U game, but this version upgrades the original with a faster pace and online play, and then adds the experimental and gloriously strange Bowser's Fury on top of it.

The two experiences are bifurcated to the point where you need to quit out of one completely to start the other. This makes sense--the two share some superficial traits but are otherwise very different design philosophies and platforming approaches. Because of this very split design, though, it only makes sense to examine them as separate games.

Super Mario 3D World

It's easier to see Super Mario 3D World's place in Mario canon with the benefit of hindsight. It's a successor to Mario Galaxy, not in direct mechanics but in a broader design philosophy. The stages are relatively small, self-contained bouts of creative platforming, often with their own theme or mechanics at the forefront. Each stage is presented as a diorama slice and usually include a limited degree of Z-axis depth, but the core idea between them is the same: Get in, see a clever application of Mario mechanics, then get out before the concept overstays its welcome.