Colonization of the outer Solar System the Solar System's gas giant planets for exploration and possibly mining of helium-3, which could have a very high value per unit mass as a thermonuclear fuel. The Jovian system in general has particular disadvantages for colonization, including its severe radiation environment and its particularly deep gravity well. Its radiation would deliver about 3,600 rems per day to unshielded colonists on Io and about 540 rems per day to unshielded colonists on Europa. Exposure to about 75 rems over a few days is enough to cause radiation poisoning, and about 500 rems over a few days is fatal. Jupiter itself,
Solar System shaped by two separate forces: the solar wind and the Sun's gravity. The limit of the solar wind's influence is roughly four times Pluto's distance from the Sun; this "heliopause", the outer boundary of the heliosphere, is considered the beginning of the interstellar medium. The Sun's Hill sphere, the effective range of its gravitational dominance, is thought to extend up to a thousand times farther and encompasses the theorized Oort cloud. The heliosphere is a stellar-wind bubble, a region of space dominated by the Sun, which radiates at roughly 400 km/s its solar wind, a stream of charged particles, until