Colonies won’t always last forever—sometimes planets revert, habitats decay, and entire worlds are left in ruins. Join us as we examine the life cycle of abandoned space settlements.

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Credits:

Abandoned Space Colonies - How Worlds Can Unterraform Themselves

Written, Produced & Narrated by: Isaac ArthurSelect imagery/video supplied by Getty Images

Music Courtesy of Aerium, Stellardrone, Chris Zabriskie, and Epidemic Sound http://epidemicsound.com/creator

Chapters

0:00 Intro

4:13 Why Colonies Fail

9:31 Ecological Collapse in Non-Earth Environments

12:39 Case Study – Kaluga-4, Oxygen Depletion

14:34 Unterraforming – How a World Reverts or Mutates

16:45 Abandonment Timelines

19:08 Case Study – Proxima B

22:00 Nebula

Restoration & Resettlement

23:43 Case Study – Valhalla

25:22 System-Level Context

29:05 Long-Term Patterns in a Galactic Civilization

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