Jump to content
Join the Unexplained Mysteries community today! It's free and setting up an account only takes a moment.
- Sign In or Create Account -

Maybe can't terraform Mars


Merc14

Recommended Posts

Scientists are now saying that there may not be enough CO2 left at Mars to successfully terraform the planet.

Forget About Terraforming Mars. Here's Why.

By Elizabeth Howell, Seeker | April 19, 2017 07:34am ET
 
If you want to terraform a planet, you can do so virtually in a new video game called "Mass Effect: Andromeda." The main character voyages to planets that are uninhabitable to life as we know it for various reasons, including sulfuric water, immense cold, or a thin atmosphere. It's then your task as a player to fix up these planets, in part by using alien technology.

Could we terraform a planet for real, though?

For decades, one of the top targets for terraforming was Mars. It's relatively close to Earth and we have reams of research showing that water flowed there in the ancient past. Perhaps the Red Planet, if it was warm enough, could host life as we know it again — although there is the ethical problem of potentially wiping out evidence of past life, or viability for present life.

NASA has deployed a spacecraft called Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution (MAVEN) to watch the atmosphere from above and try to figure out the rate of gas loss. Scientists think that Mars had a thick carbon dioxide (CO2) atmosphere early in its history that allowed liquid water to exist, but most of the atmosphere was lost to space. When the atmosphere thinned, so the theory goes, water could no longer flow on the surface.

"The rate of loss of gas today is very low — slow enough that it would take billions of years to remove the equivalent amount of gas that is in the atmosphere," principal investigator Bruce Jakosky said in an email. There is some CO2 left in the polar ice and in carbon-bearing materials, he added, but not nearly enough to warm the temperature significantly if it somehow was put back in the atmosphere.

"There isn’t a source of CO2 that could replenish the atmosphere — even outgassing of CO2 from volcanoes has got to be incredibly slow today," Jakosky added. "If we wanted to put enough CO2 into the atmosphere to raise temperatures significantly, it would take something like 10 million kilometer-sized comets (if they were all made entirely of CO2). This is just not feasible."

 

Article continues:  http://www.space.com/36516-forget-about-terraforming-mars-heres-why.html?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=social

Link to comment
Share on other sites

From a scientific standpoint I've never understood why we would want to terraform a planet to begin with... If we had the technology to do so, that means we could repair the damage to our own planet instead of spending umpteen billion dollars repairing a planet elsewhere.... No, generations from now when Earth is at its limit as far as population and we need the room, im all for spreading out... reaching for the cosmos... but terraforming another planet simply because we have destroyed this one shouldn't be an option.

  • Like 2
Link to comment
Share on other sites

It isn't science that is preventing us from repairing this planet.  It's politics.  It is literally easier to move to another planet to terraform it, because trying to deal with the politics on this one to repair it is almost impossible.

  • Like 2
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Isn't Mars lacking a magnetic field (no spinning iron core)?  Without such there is no reasonable protection from solar winds and the more harmful solar radiation.  The solar winds would strip off the atmosphere, as has already happened, as fast as it was reconstructed.  I suspect all surface living on Mars would need to be under domes.  Happy to be corrected if I have got this wrong.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

No, no, that is certainly an issue.\

Personally, I find Venus to be a far better target for terraforming than Mars.  Gravity is closer to ours.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

4 hours ago, Dredimus said:

From a scientific standpoint I've never understood why we would want to terraform a planet to begin with... If we had the technology to do so, that means we could repair the damage to our own planet instead of spending umpteen billion dollars repairing a planet elsewhere.... No, generations from now when Earth is at its limit as far as population and we need the room, im all for spreading out... reaching for the cosmos... but terraforming another planet simply because we have destroyed this one shouldn't be an option.

Who said that the reason we will terraform Mars is because we have destroyed this planet (other than you that is)?

Terraforming Mars and/or Venus makes perfect, scientific sense. You have partly answered your own question when you said:

4 hours ago, Dredimus said:

 generations from now when Earth is at its limit as far as population and we need the room, im all for spreading out... reaching for the cosmos

Since  we do not currently have the technology to terraform any planet then this is not something we are going to be doing tomorrow but rather something we are going to be doing in several generations time at the very least. You do, therefore, rather seem to be destroying your own argument..

The other obvious reason is that we are not the only threat to this planet. Natural disasters such as super volcanoes and asteroid strikes could lead to mass extinctions. If we are to survive as a species we need to live on multiple planets.. Terraforming planets in our own solar system would be a start. Ultimately we would need to spread out to planets around other stars.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

On 20/04/2017 at 2:17 AM, aquatus1 said:

Personally, I find Venus to be a far better target for terraforming than Mars.  Gravity is closer to ours.

I guess with both planets there are extraordinary and different challenges that man would have to face by choosing which one to colonise. 

I was wondering tho, wouldn't Mars be easier, because we could at least inhabit the surface. Where as the surface on Venus is massively hot, since being closer to the sun.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, Astra. said:

I guess with both planets there are extraordinary and different challenges that man would have to face by choosing which one to colonise. 

I was wondering tho, wouldn't Mars be easier, because we could at least inhabit the surface. Where as the surface on Venus is massively hot, since being closer to the sun.

Venus is the hottest planet in our solar system but not because it is closer to the sun, Mercury is the closest planet to the Sun, but because it has enough gravity to hold onto an atmosphere which led to a runaway greenhouse effect.   It is believed that Venus had water early in its existence but the lack of a magnetosphere allowed the solar wind to rip away the hydrogen and oxygen ions leaving the dominant CO2 and other gases which led to the runaway green house effect.    At least that is what I remember of it and if wrong I'm sure someone will correct me.  I know the Venus Express spacecraft just finished up last year and they are still crunching the data.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

43 minutes ago, Merc14 said:

Venus is the hottest planet in our solar system but not because it is closer to the sun, Mercury is the closest planet to the Sun, but because it has enough gravity to hold onto an atmosphere which led to a runaway greenhouse effect.   It is believed that Venus had water early in its existence but the lack of a magnetosphere allowed the solar wind to rip away the hydrogen and oxygen ions leaving the dominant CO2 and other gases which led to the runaway green house effect.    At least that is what I remember of it and if wrong I'm sure someone will correct me.  I know the Venus Express spacecraft just finished up last year and they are still crunching the data.

Well thank you for that, there was quite a bit that I wasn't aware off. So Venus is still a very hostile planet for humans to live on, given the surface heat and it's stifling atmosphere.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

3 minutes ago, Astra. said:

Well thank you for that, there was quite a bit that I wasn't aware off. So Venus is still a very hostile planet for humans to live on, given the surface heat and it's stifling atmosphere.

It is hot enough to melt lead and 90 atmospheres of pressure on the surface.   Purpose built spacecraft last only a few hours before they are destroyed and no chance of water in any form anywhere on Venus.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

55 minutes ago, Merc14 said:

It is hot enough to melt lead and 90 atmospheres of pressure on the surface.   Purpose built spacecraft last only a few hours before they are destroyed and no chance of water in any form anywhere on Venus.

Wow...well if Venus is hot enough to melt lead, and seriously hostile...then why would it have been chosen (besides Mars) to possibly host humans in the distant future ?...and according to your interesting OP...it seems in theory that Mars comes with a few problems as well, and may not be a feasible option either for humans to live there, because of the chronic problem with the lack of CO2.

I did find your article interesting when it touched on climate, as in...

 

Quote

if we knew enough about climate to control the Mars climate, we also could control the Earth’s climate and either keep from mucking it up in the first place, or repair it after we’ve damaged it,"

 

^ I think they make a very good point here. Basically, if we start to take good care of our own beautiful pale blue dot, and appreciate what we have here, then there would be no need for us to try and colonise a way off distant planet in the future. 

Btw, the virtual video game that was mentioned in the article sounds pretty good.

 

Edited by Astra.
  • Like 2
Link to comment
Share on other sites

40 minutes ago, Astra. said:

Basically, if we start to take good care of our own beautiful pale blue dot, and appreciate what we have here, then there would be no need for us to try and colonise a way off distant planet in the future.

People often talk about terraforming Mars to give "us" somewhere to go after we have ******up the Earth. There are currently over 7 billion people on Earth - far too many to move to Mars. So perhaps the idea is that the population of Earth will have dropped sharply during the process of *******up the planet, or that only a relatively small number of people will be "allowed" to go to the beautifully terraformed Mars, whilst the rest stay here and die. Either way, the vast majority of humanity will not be going to Mars. So surely, we should concentrate on not *******up the Earth, and let future generations live in this beautiful place in the same we have for 200,000 years. Then, we can terraform Mars as a colony for people who want to go there.

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

55 minutes ago, Astra. said:

Wow...well if Venus is hot enough to melt lead, and seriously hostile...then why would it have been chosen (besides Mars) to possibly host humans in the distant future ?...and according to your interesting OP...it seems in theory that Mars comes with a few problems as well, and may not be a feasible option either for humans to live there, because of the chronic problem with the lack of CO2.

I did find your article interesting when it touched on climate, as in...

Terraforming anything is far beyond our current technology regardless but Venus is attractive because it has about the same gravity as earth, can hold an atmosphere and while closer to the Sun is also closer to earth than Mars meaning shorter travel time and more frequent launch windows.    But then we have that hellish atmosphere except if you stop thinking about living on the ground and start thinking about cities floating in the super thick atmosphere.   Up at about 50 miles the temperatures are fairly benign, the pressure earth like and I think there is still enough atmosphere above you to shield rom radiation (although I'll have to look that one up)  Also, a balloon filled with breathable air would float like a helium balloon in the thick Venusian atmosphere.   The winds are strong but you are floating with them so no worries. 

55 minutes ago, Astra. said:

^ I think they make a very good point here. Basically, if we start to take good care of our own beautiful pale blue dot, and appreciate what we have here, then there would be no need for us to try and colonise a way off distant planet in the future. 

Btw, the virtual video game that was mentioned in the article sounds pretty good.

 

The problem is that sooner or later the planet will get hit with another massive asteroid and/or a supervolcano will blow up.   Unless we can stop both we have a survival problem as a species. 

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

2 hours ago, Merc14 said:

Terraforming anything is far beyond our current technology regardless but Venus is attractive because it has about the same gravity as earth, can hold an atmosphere and while closer to the Sun is also closer to earth than Mars meaning shorter travel time and more frequent launch windows.    But then we have that hellish atmosphere except if you stop thinking about living on the ground and start thinking about cities floating in the super thick atmosphere.   Up at about 50 miles the temperatures are fairly benign, the pressure earth like and I think there is still enough atmosphere above you to shield rom radiation (although I'll have to look that one up)  Also, a balloon filled with breathable air would float like a helium balloon in the thick Venusian atmosphere.   The winds are strong but you are floating with them so no worries. 

The problem is that sooner or later the planet will get hit with another massive asteroid and/or a supervolcano will blow up.   Unless we can stop both we have a survival problem as a species. 

I agree.

The least solution to any possibility of these scenarios eventuating would be to terraform another planet. The idea is fanciful and not the least bit manageable or practical.

Too much time, energy, money, lives, would be lost. It is a rubiks cube of unknowns and in my opinion will never happen, it doesn't even glimmer with a silver lining of hope.

We already deal with super quakes and super tsunamis and super storms, and not one of us has had to run to Mars or Venus. This planet is home. Get used to it.

Our most immediate super threat is a super war.  

We don't need to terraform another planet we need to terraform our thinking and our way of living.

A floating city with a breathable balloon on Venus?  Very funny.  

Link to comment
Share on other sites

16 minutes ago, taniwha said:

I agree.

The least solution to any possibility of these scenarios eventuating would be to terraform another planet. The idea is fanciful and not the least bit manageable or practical.

Too much time, energy, money, lives, would be lost. It is a rubiks cube of unknowns and in my opinion will never happen, it doesn't even glimmer with a silver lining of hope.

Certainly not with today's technology but who knows what we will be flying 100 years from now?   Think about the state of the art aircraft in 1917, a Sopwith Dolphin still in development with a top speed of 130 knots compared to an F-35 today.   We should have fusion reactors by then and far more powerful lift vehicles. 

16 minutes ago, taniwha said:

We already deal with super quakes and super tsunamis and super storms, and not one of us has had to run to Mars or Venus. This planet is home. Get used to it.

We haven't dealt with a supervolcano in recorded history, nor have we dealt with a 12 mile wide asteroid.  Krakatoa is still the largest Volcanic explosion in recorded history and its was a firecracker compared to a supervolcano

16 minutes ago, taniwha said:

Our most immediate super threat is a super war.  

We don't need to terraform another planet we need to terraform our thinking and our way of living.

Peace is always preferable to war.

16 minutes ago, taniwha said:

A floating city with a breathable balloon on Venus?  Very funny.  

This is a real study!  You obviously wouldn't build a city first, you'd start with floating probes and build up to a manned station with oxygen making capabilities etc.  http://www.space.com/29140-venus-airship-cloud-cities-incredible-technology.html

Link to comment
Share on other sites

A floating habitat in Venus' atmosphere is a perfectly sound proposal, though requiring a very substantial effort to bring it about. We could at least establish research outposts there, such as there are in Antarctica. 

Solar reflectors in orbit of Mars, if large enough, might warm the planet sufficiently to liberate carbon dioxide and water vapor from the polar caps, and the soil. Once this was begun, both would further the warming process.

It's been estimated that there is enough carbon dioxide left on Mars to provide 30 to 60 percent of Earth atmospheric pressure. Even near the lower end of this range, pressure suits would no longer be necessary, merely simple oxygen masks.

About 2/3 of carbon dioxide is oxygen. Perhaps the extraction of breathable oxygen from it will become practical at some point. This has already been done experimentally with lasers.   

Edited by bison
Link to comment
Share on other sites

54 minutes ago, bison said:

A floating habitat in Venus' atmosphere is a perfectly sound proposal, though requiring a very substantial effort to bring it about. We could at least establish research outposts there, such as there are in Antarctica. 

Solar reflectors in orbit of Mars, if large enough, might warm the planet sufficiently to liberate carbon dioxide and water vapor from the polar caps, and the soil. Once this was begun, both would further the warming process.

It's been estimated that there is enough carbon dioxide left on Mars to provide 30 to 60 percent of Earth atmospheric pressure. Even near the lower end of this range, pressure suits would no longer be necessary, merely simple oxygen masks.

About 2/3 of carbon dioxide is oxygen. Perhaps the extraction of breathable oxygen from it will become practical at some point. This has already been done experimentally with lasers.   

I just wonder if the low gravity of Mars would be a show stopper?  It's about 40% that of earth so could the human body adapt and if so would you be able to ever return to earth?   We need to spend more timer studying Venus' upper atmosphere as there is an indirect indicator chemical, carbonyl sulfide, of life in the clouds.  https://www.seeker.com/does-alien-life-thrive-in-venus-mysterious-clouds-1767520286.html

Edited by Merc14
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Those mysterious mode 3 cloud particles in Venus' atmosphere are much larger than the particles in Earth's atmosphere that serve as nuclei for the condensation of cloud droplets. If the nucleation process is similar, high in Venus' atmosphere, it's possible that the mode 3 particles are, instead, living organisms, or collections of these.

It might be possible to capture and study these particles for signs of life, once we have an atmospheric outpost at Venus.  

Link to comment
Share on other sites

6 minutes ago, bison said:

Those mysterious mode 3 cloud particles in Venus' atmosphere are much larger than the particles in Earth's atmosphere that serve as nuclei for the condensation of cloud droplets. If the nucleation process is similar, high in Venus' atmosphere, it's possible that the mode 3 particles are, instead, living organisms, or collections of these.

It might be possible to capture and study these particles for signs of life, once we have an atmospheric outpost at Venus.  

Yes the article was alluding to that possibility but obviously wouldn't go there.   Here is an interesting NASA study on a manned mission to explore Venus at around 50km altitude in an airship.   I would think that drastically shrinking the craft down and running a robotic mission is doable and not prohibitively expensive.   Plenty of solar radiation to power the craft and you wouldn't need massive amounts of shielding  https://www.universetoday.com/117434/exploring-venus-by-airship-cool-concept-but-certainly-not-new/

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Compared to Mars, the Australian Outback is a veritable Garden of Eden, yet few want to live there. So, why would anyone want to live on that desiccated frozen hell of a planet? Terraforming would take thousands of years.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

5 minutes ago, Hammerclaw said:

Compared to Mars, the Australian Outback is a veritable Garden of Eden, yet few want to live there. So, why would anyone want to live on that desiccated frozen hell of a planet? Terraforming would take thousands of years.

Hammer, the Australian outback doesn't have 1/3rd the gravity of earth, no magnetosphere to block the solar wind and no water to be found without high tech.  Soooo:D....

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

11 hours ago, Derek Willis said:

People often talk about terraforming Mars to give "us" somewhere to go after we have ******up the Earth. There are currently over 7 billion people on Earth - far too many to move to Mars. So perhaps the idea is that the population of Earth will have dropped sharply during the process of *******up the planet, or that only a relatively small number of people will be "allowed" to go to the beautifully terraformed Mars, whilst the rest stay here and die. Either way, the vast majority of humanity will not be going to Mars. So surely, we should concentrate on not *******up the Earth, and let future generations live in this beautiful place in the same we have for 200,000 years. Then, we can terraform Mars as a colony for people who want to go there.

Still, the thought of terraforming another planet, whether it be living 'on' Mars or living 'above' Venus is certainly an exciting, not to mention an amazing concept, for the future survival of mankind.

But, in reality...(my imagination is in overdrive atm) say we were all ready prepared because of some kind of unavoidable and imminent catastrophe that was going to destroy earth....and we had built these colossal dome cities on Mars and / or had colossal floating cities above Venus....well, who would be chosen to embark on the journey to live on or above these planets ?

As you have mentioned...there are billions of people that live on earth. So it seems very unlikely that we could all go on this hypothetical journey. So yes, it seems that only a special chosen few would be picked...and that would kinda suck.

As a matter of fact, it sort of reminds me of the movie Deep Impact, where billions of people on the earth were sacrificed, and only the special few were allowed to be saved, as to continue the survival of our species.

11 hours ago, Merc14 said:

Terraforming anything is far beyond our current technology regardless but Venus is attractive because it has about the same gravity as earth, can hold an atmosphere and while closer to the Sun is also closer to earth than Mars meaning shorter travel time and more frequent launch windows.    But then we have that hellish atmosphere except if you stop thinking about living on the ground and start thinking about cities floating in the super thick atmosphere.   Up at about 50 miles the temperatures are fairly benign, the pressure earth like and I think there is still enough atmosphere above you to shield rom radiation (although I'll have to look that one up)  Also, a balloon filled with breathable air would float like a helium balloon in the thick Venusian atmosphere.

It all sounds wonderful, but there would be many, many other things that NASA and other space agencies would have to take into consideration as well I suppose. I imagine that putting a whole bunch of human beings into anyone of these floating cities, would still bring it's problems, especially as far as humans getting along well together in a confined and controlled environment

 After a while and once the population begins to grow, as to keep our survival going, we would have to hope that enough food, and water would continue to be plentiful. We would also need leaders, so a different type of politics would probably come into play.

Quote

The winds are strong but you are floating with them so no worries.

You make it sound stress free and very magical Merc...as we float and flutter along with the winds :)

Quote

The problem is that sooner or later the planet will get hit with another massive asteroid and/or a supervolcano will blow up.   Unless we can stop both we have a survival problem as a species. 

Well, even if one of those horrible scenario's were to happen and we saw the end of our planet, and even though we were already prepared with other havens floating above the clouds of Venus....I still can't help but wonder about the new set of problems we humans would possibly still have to face.

Like once our earth was completely gone, there would be no more survival supplies from earth, people would remain basically congregated in these floating cities and no where else to escape to. What would we do if the food supply and water started to run out. What would we do if medical supplies began to dry up ?

Btw, just a reminder...this is all just hypothetical stuff, by using my 'run away' imagination :-*...

Edited by Astra.
i hate typo's...
Link to comment
Share on other sites

13 minutes ago, Merc14 said:

Hammer, the Australian outback doesn't have 1/3rd the gravity of earth, no magnetosphere to block the solar wind and no water to be found without high tech.  Soooo:D....

Go out into the middle of it and build casinos and Australia would have it's own Vegas. Money always finds away.

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

11 minutes ago, Hammerclaw said:

Go out into the middle of it and build casinos and Australia would have it's own Vegas. Money always finds away.

Iv'e always thought that we should build a proper and viable large city in the middle of the desert. All we need to do is pipe water down from the north in the colossal wet season, rather than wasting it.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Just now, Astra. said:

Iv'e always thought that we should build a proper and viable large city in the middle of the desert. All we need to do is pipe water down from the north in the colossal wet season, rather than wasting it.

The technology will come available to build giant precipitation towers to draw water out the air. It would just be so much easier to overcome the difficulties of living in the arid regions of Earth than it will be on Mars.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.