Habitable exomoons

[Waspie_Dwarf]

Habitable exomoons will need to be bigger than Mars

Planet-sized moons orbiting huge gas giants could provide havens for life around other stars, but in order to be habitable these moons would need to be larger and more massive than Mars, according to new research by René Heller and Ralph Pudritz of McMaster University in Canada.

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[Taun]

I know the article stated that if Ceres (for example) were in Earth's Orbit, it's ice would melt and it would gain an atmosphere, but be unable to hold it... I wonder how long a body that size

could hold a viable atmosphere... Would it be just a few months/years... or hundreds even a few thousand?... Long enough for colonization and technology to extend the time?

Edited June 2, 2015 by Taun

[fred_mc]

I know the article stated that if Ceres (for example) were in Earth's Orbit, it's ice would melt and it would gain an atmosphere, but be unable to hold it... I wonder how long a body that size

could hold a viable atmosphere... Would it be just a few months/years... or hundreds even a few thousand?... Long enough for colonization and technology to extend the time?

The gravitation of such small bodies is so low so that the air pressure would also be extremely low, even with a thick atmosphere, too low for us to survive without a pressure suit.

[Waspie_Dwarf]

Long enough for colonization and technology to extend the time?

Any civilization with the technology capable of moving an object the size of Ceres to the habitable zone is almost certainly going to have the technology not to need to move an object the size of Ceres to the habitable zone.