Yes, though that may not be a useful distinction since our Earth has that too…
From your source:
Earth’s regolith[8][9][10] includes the following subdivisions and components:
soil or pedolith
Regolith on Earth originates from weathering and biological processes. The uppermost part of the regolith, which typically contains significant organic matter, is more conventionally referred to as soil.[15] The presence of regolith is one of the important factors for most life, since few plants can grow on or within solid rock and animals would be unable to burrow or build shelter without loose material.[16]
You know… I think I’ve grown tired of a perception Musk capitalizes on about what science needs to be and how it needs to be centered in life.
Science needs to be seen as something that DOES say “no we can’t, at least not now, not practically.”
This frat party mentality about “sPaCe scIEnce” vs like ecology or medicine is fucked.
No we cannot colonize mars. We can build things. We can go to space. It is lavish and difficult. It consumes massive resources, and damages the Earth. It is costly and of narrow, though significant, importance. It’s good that we can. But other things are reallyhonest to fucking god just as amazing. And some of them are just as important to the blessed goddamned future that the longermists preach about.
Like honestly fuck your space dreams people. Other people have dreams that involve being alive on this Earth. Your dreams aren’t that special and they only really have practical purposes in defense and mining. Like that’s enough to be worth investing in but it will in NO WAY save us from catastrophe if we fuck the Earth up too badly, which we are definitely doing.
I’m going to be intentionally pedantic, but I’m only doing so because I have recently learned this fact, and want to share.
“Solar System” refers to the specific star (Sol) and the things that orbit it.
The term “Solar System” entered the English language by 1704, when John Locke used it to refer to the Sun, planets, and comets.[290]
In other words, our Solar System is the only Solar system. Planetary systems that orbit other stars or stellar systems would necessarily have different names.
I’ve been using solar system as a generic term for any planetary system, when the reality is so much more interesting.
I got to be one of the 10,000 recently, now maybe someone else can be too:
That’s one thing I appreciate about Star Trek and their framing of space faring… it has to be done from the position of a unified planet that has solved problems like bigotry, resource scarcity, inequality, etc… You don’t get space travel as long as you’re killing people for being the color of the skin, which is what we’re still doing.
If we’re being pedantic, then when capitalized “Solar System” refers to the one we live in. But “solar system” can also be used for any planetary system. Like the Moon, which goes around us, versus moons, which go around whatever.
I have some half-formed thought about what science means to people too. Because it’s not the part of STEM that’s about building rockets at all, it’s about understanding what’s out there. The people who are out there looking at the wonders of coral reefs and crying that we are killing them are actual scientists. Musk likes to get people to build new things but has never been the least bit interested in the world, to the point he claims it’s fake.
So does this mean if you took solar panels far enough away from this system, they’d cease to be solar panels and be, I guess, Proxima Centaurian panels or something?
