Outer space is set to become a defining domain of human enterprise in the coming decades and opens up potentials for geographers to extend thinking beyond our earthly sphere and through to other places, planets, and natures. This paper advocates for expanded geographical attention beyond terrestrial boundaries, through exo and cosmological dimensions. It draws on cultural geographer Denis Cosgrove’s almost-25-year-old call for extra-terrestrial geographies and for a rethinking of human cosmographic connection.
Twenty-first century human exo-planetary activity has continued to expand: with numerous probes sent to explore solar planets and bodies; a reinvigorated and expanding space-launch industry; proposed manned missions returning to the moon, and aimed at Mars. Additionally, the launch of the James Webb Space Telescope has significantly enhanced capacity to penetrate the depths of the cosmos, allowing us to discern clearer details of galaxies, star systems, planetary bodies, and possible signals of exo-planetary life.
Such potentials resonate with fundamental cultural-geographic concerns, such as meanings of place, of human experience and relationality. They also align with concerns of contemporary social thought focusing on conditions of planetarity, of sociality and co-existence, and of the more-than-human, extending such ideas through exo, cosmological and alien dimensions. Exo-planetary activities and discoveries will fundamentally impact our understanding of the human: advancing the post-human condition, continuing to decentre the human, and pose challenges for how humans relate to alien environments and natures, and ultimately understand their place in the cosmos