Colonization of the outer Solar System Colonization of the outer Solar System Many parts of the outer Solar System have been considered for possible future colonization. Most of the larger moons of the outer planets contain water ice, liquid water, and organic compounds that might be useful for sustaining human life. Colonies in the outer Solar System could also serve as centers for long-term investigation of the planet and the other moons. In particular, robotic devices could be controlled by humans without the very long time delays incurred in communicating with Earth. There have also been proposals to place robotic aerostats in the upper atmospheres of
Five-planet Nice model in 2011 after numerical models indicated that this is more likely to reproduce the current Solar System. The following is a version of the five-planet Nice model that results in a late instability and reproduces a number of aspects of the current Solar System. The early Solar System may have evolved differently, however, with the instability occurring soon after the dissipation of the gas nebula, or with the giant planets beginning in another resonance chain. The Solar System ends its nebula phase with Jupiter, Saturn, and the three ice giants in a 3:2, 3:2, 2:1, 3:2 resonance chain with semi-major