Although our planet is big and full of lots of natural resources, they will not last forever.
As the population of Earth continues to climb, all these resources we have will continue
to diminish.......as a result we will eventually
need to look elsewhere to maintain our ever growing
needs.
Naturally, we will turn our attentions towards our nearest neighbour - Mars
Getting there, creating a colony and living off the planets resources will be extremely
difficult tasks that could be a reality in our lifetime.....but
can we go a huge step further and one day terraform
Mars?
So we can call it true home from home.
So what is terraforming?
- Terraforming is the hypothetical process of manipulating a planets
atmosphere, temperature and ecology in order to make it Earth-like and suitable for humans
to live on.
Mars was once a very geologically active planet with vast seas, tectonic processes, volcanoes,
a strong magnetic field and a thick atmosphere......
but sadly due to its small size, it cooled quickly
and was unable to maintain its magnetic field.
As the magnetic field weakened the sun stripped away its atmosphere.
Today, Mars’ atmosphere is still present but it is extremely thin, it’s
atmospheric pressure being only about 0.6% (0.6kpa) of Earth’s (101.3kpa).
It is still losing 100grams of atmosphere every second - the
equivalent being the mass of a burger every second!
One of the key factors required for terraforming would be the need to raise temperatures, the
average temperature on Mars is about minus 80 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 60 degrees Celsius).
The easiest way to make the planet warmer would be to significantly increase Carbon
Dioxide (CO2) levels....Carbon dioxide is the most
common greenhouse gas available on the planet and
would help thicken the atmosphere in order to raise temperatures.
Although our current ability to carry out such a gargantuan task is way beyond us, and
will most likely be the case for many centuries yet,
there are theories about how we might one day be able
to achieve turning Mars in a fully fledged home.
Current theories include...
Releasing CO2 gases trapped within rocks and the polar ice caps.....however, it has been
calculated that the amounts available for extraction would not be anywhere near enough
to raise the temperature to the levels required ......so
this method would have to work in conjunction with
other possible plans like bombarding the planet with rockets carrying greenhouse gases over
a long period of time or maybe advancement in
future technologies would be able to extract more
of the trapped CO2.
Elon Musk has suggested that the quickest way to raise temperature levels would be to
simply nuke the planet!
But this method would come with huge risks, it could trigger a ‘nuclear winter’,
whereby the explosions create so much dust it blocks out the sunlight completely and
cools the planet further.
NASA has already ruled out such a radical approach as this would compromise the
planets natural environment.
Orbital Mirrors .....yes you heard correctly, giant mirrors positioned around the planet
could redirect sunlight and its heat directly onto
the planets surface or even be positioned to melt ice
deposits to release CO2.
Artificial magnetospheres may play important roles in terraforming, this method would significantly
reduce solar winds that are currently stripping the atmosphere and simulations show that the
atmospheric pressure could recover to about 50% of Earths atmosphere within years...
There are 2 options for this - one is by building a system of refrigerated latitudinal
superconducting rings across the planets surface, creating the magnetosphere on the planet.
Or by placing a powerful magnetic dipole in the space between the sun and Mars, deflecting
the solar winds away before it gets anywhere near
the planet.
Another method that has been proposed is by redirecting asteroids to crash into the
surface where ground ice is abundant and creating meltwater lakes that can be sustained for
thousands of years.
Although this method wouldn’t be feasible in terraforming the whole planet,
it would allow for small areas of concentrated terraforming to feed off the impact site water
lake, creating domes to protect the lake to grow
forests that would supply oxygen to colonies.
This would be useful in the early stages of the
planets colonisation.