/sci/ - Science & Math

[Anonymous No.7455157]

Hey /sci/, I kinda suck at science but I keep wondering about 1 thing: will we ever be able to turn Mars into a planet with forests, cities and blue skies? And how could we do that / Why couldn't we?

[Anonymous No.7455332]

We can't. No magnetic force

[Anonymous No.7455363]

>>7455332

So we are doomed to live on earth forever?

[Anonymous No.7455377]

>>7455363
As me and you yes, as the future humans in 100k years, no.

[Anonymous No.7455380]

>>7455157
Am I the only one seeing this?

[Anonymous No.7455386]

>>7455332
its has a magnetic field but its weak because the core of mars is by now solid not liquid so no dynamo to power it . the surface has a fair amount of iron oxide that actually is attributed to a noticeable amount of mars's magnetic field

but it is weak as hell and wont fight the solar wind enough for a sustainable atmosphere for humans or plants

[Anonymous No.7455387]

>>7455377

But how could they raise the temperature, and make the air breathable? I don't think just planting some plants would work.

[Anonymous No.7455389]

>>7455332
is a magnetic force absolutely vital for life?

[Anonymous No.7455390]

>>7455157
i suppose that in the near future (1k years) we may have colonies on mars,in a dome-like ambient.
terraforming seems like way too hard and costly and we probably will be dead as a society before that

[Anonymous No.7455401]

>>7455380

[Anonymous No.7455404]

>>7455401
I'm too high for this man

[Anonymous No.7455406]

>>7455157
It is cold, has a very thin atmosphere and no magnetic field. Assuming you managed to somehow resolve those 3 issues you still have to deal with the low gravity, which would have long term health effects.

It is actually feasible to grow certain types of plants on Mars as it is now, as long as you can provide them with a source of water.

[Anonymous No.7455418]

>>7455406

Can't we use greenhouse gasses to raise the temperature? And isn't there a way to create a magnetic field?

[Anonymous No.7455422]

>>7455401
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TonvlGDq8nY

[Anonymous No.7455443]

>>7455418
yes

not at the scale required

[Anonymous No.7455477]

>>7455443
not all life forms are sensitive to UV radiation, lichen is a good example and it would produce oxygen too.

[Anonymous No.7455498]

>>7455406
>Assuming you managed to somehow resolve those 3 issues you still have to deal with the low gravity, which would have long term health effects.

I'm guessing there's a very simple explanation for why this wouldn't work, but why not just strap weights onto a person that would make up for the difference?

[Anonymous No.7455504]

>>7455157
>Mars
No.

However there are proposals for terraforming Venus.

[Anonymous No.7455509]

>>7455498

maybe we'd do that, our body would weight about half as much as it does on earth. That's not an absurd amount; our bodies dramatically change in weight throughout our lives and subsequent generations would adjust physiologically.

it's a 'snow day' problem, a minor issue used to shut down the whole premise.

[Anonymous No.7455523]

>>7455387
By creating our own atmosphere, think of it like putting plants in a habitable 'sphere' houses etc

[Anonymous No.7455538]

we could thicken the atmosphere by making a tube from earth to mars with a vaccum cleaner at the end or lots of fans then turn it on.

problem solved, atmosphere on mars habitable, bad greenhouse gases on earth removed. 2 planets ready to go

[Anonymous No.7455544]

>>7455386
>but it is weak as hell and wont fight the solar wind enough for a sustainable atmosphere for humans or plants

Goddamn, you'd think on /sci/ of all places that people would understand that this is not the goddamn issue.

The atmosphere blows away at such a small rate that it would not be a problem at all. It took millions of years for Mars' atmosphere to thin out.

[Anonymous No.7455550]

>>7455504
Isn't Venus a lot harder to terraform? Extremely high temperatures and acid clouds etc.

[Anonymous No.7455557]

>>7455401
I can't unsee this man...

[Anonymous No.7455558]

>>7455523
Like this?

[Anonymous No.7455559]

>>7455550
He's trolling, we sent a satellite to venus and it melted in 2 minutes or was crushed by the atmosphere, either way, terraforming my ass.

[Anonymous No.7455569]

>>7455389
Yes because high energy charged particles rain in on our solar systems planets from all directions, most of them produced by the Sun.

[Anonymous No.7455587]

>>7455569
>muh radiation

There are several ways of counteracting the constant, higher levels of background radiation on Mars, and research into health effects of cosmic radiation show people often overreact to this problem. Spending 3 consecutive years exposed on the surface of Mars wouldn't even take you over NASA's own conservative safety dosage of radiation.

[Anonymous No.7455594]

>>7455498
Just wearing some weights will not properly combat muscle atrophy and bone deterioration.

>>7455509
>our bodies dramatically change in weight throughout our lives and subsequent generations would adjust physiologically

As you grow your body builds itself to accommodate your increased weight. There is no biological function to accommodate gravity changes.

>it's a 'snow day' problem, a minor issue used to shut down the whole premise.

No, its a real issue that you want to handwave because it is inconvenient.

[Anonymous No.7455602]

>>7455559
The only way I could see it happening would be to manage to dump a gorillion cubic meters of water on Venus to act as a sink for the greenhouse gases, but doing it in some magic manner that keeps it from being instantly boiled away and contributing to the problem.

[Anonymous No.7455620]

>>7455380
you just ruined mars forever.

[Anonymous No.7455628]

>>7455594
Won't the humans (and other animals we might bring to start an ecosystem) just adapt to the situation? Evolution and stuff

[Anonymous No.7455825]

>>7455628
not that rapidly. for that we'd need to geneer people and animals for the gravity and atmospheric conditions. peter f. hamilton loosely taps on the principle in a sci-fi book from his neutronium alchemist series.
the atmosphere will likely be less dense no matter what you do to it as there is less gravity. then you've got to comat the temperature issues associated with the farther distance from the sun, the thinner atmosphere (lower pressure air likes to hold less heat) and the infuckingsane weather on Mars.
once we do get the atmosphere back up to snuff with lichen everywhere for several centuries and dumping mass quantities of water, carbon dioxide and hydrocarbons into the lower atmosphere, we've got the geneering problem.

less pressure so we've got to adapt the human body to operate nominally under those conditions if we hope to survive in open air on mars. less gravity, so we've got to adjust the cardiovascular system to accommodate that, and the lung capacity and shape to allow proper oxidaton of our blood, oh and by the way, we'll probably need to tweak our blood cell counts and decrease the tendencies for coagulation of the blood to prevent clotting and aneurysm problems

[Anonymous No.7455831]

>>7455825
probably cheaper and simpler to just live in dome cities

[Anonymous No.7455914]

It's literally impossible to terraform Mars. Enclosed habitations though...

[Anonymous No.7455928]

>>7455914
>literally impossible

No.

Improbable
Unfeasible with modern technology
Unlikely to ever be worth it

All of these are yes, but it's not impossible.

[Anonymous No.7455940]

>>7455443
Couldn't this be done by making the core of the planet hotter (more molten again)? Ok obviously not trivial, but how much energy are we talking (measured in nukes)? Could we blast Phobos into Mars hard enough to give a decent magnetic field and perhaps even an atmosphere in the process?

[Anonymous No.7455949]

>>7455940
Or, perhaps using the same technology proposed for preventing high energy collisions with Earth, we could direct a comet into Mars?

[Anonymous No.7455953]

>>7455949

You'd have to direct thousands of comets towards Mars to be able have a meaningful impact on its atmosphere and temperature.

It will never be worth it.

[Anonymous No.7455954]

Colonizing the solar system should be humanities priority right now.
China, even fucking North Korea wants to cooperate with us in space.
It could bring world peace.
It could create millions of jobs.
If we don't give off this planet, our species will die.

[Anonymous No.7455957]

Mars should be a national park. Do not disturb it by terraforming it or mining it.

[Anonymous No.7455959]

>>7455953
Maybe we should define "worth it".
Besides that, is "Mars' core isn't hot enough" even a plausible reason that it doesn't have a strong mag field? Or is Mars already fluid inside, but just not big enough to produce a strong field?

[Anonymous No.7455961]

>>7455957
The universe should be a national park. I hope it never changes. Fuck.

[Anonymous No.7455968]

>>7455959

Mars is geologically inactive, meaning its core is most likely solid.
Thus like almost every other satellite in the solar system, it doesn't have a magnetic field, making it very hostile to any living organism.

The amount energy and resources needed to turn this toxic desert habitable could well be spent on elsewhere.

Discovery and exploration of earth like planets is a much more worthwhile and ambitious endeavor.

In short, terraforming is a pipe dream and by the time we achieve that kind of technology, we should already be able to travel to other star systems with habitable planets, making the whole premise pointless.

[Anonymous No.7455979]

>>7455968
I wouldn't say pointless. The closest Earth-like planet is going to be light years away. I can't see humans not pursuing terraforming in parallel with interstellar travel. Especially since most "Earth-like" planets are going to need some tweaking (eg terraforming) anyway - we might as well experiment with something relatively close by before pouring all our resources into one thing so incredibly far away

[Anonymous No.7455980]

>>7455558
Obviously like this at first. Once we get the basics down i'm sure we can further build on certain concepts.

[Anonymous No.7455982]

Couldn't you reliquify the martian core by having it collide with a massive object and letting the planet reform? That should prop up the dynamo again, right?

[Anonymous No.7455987]

>>7455968
On the topic of energy and resources, there is plenty out there if we can figure out how to harness it. It's not like by terraforming Mars, there will somehow not be enough energy left for space travel - the sunlight absorbed and re-emitted pointlessly by Mars daily is all it'd require (leaving the mag field alone for now). You're thinking too much in terms of our current Earth-bound oil-centric economy, which I don't think applies on Mars.

[Anonymous No.7455990]

>>7455982
That's what I was getting at - I'm not sure how much energy that would require though. I haven't found any data on the temperature of Mars' innards. For that matter, I don't think we even have enough measurements to say 100% that the core isn't molten. I guess we could establish an upper bound by assuming the surface temp continues homogeneously through to the core...

[Anonymous No.7456024]

>>7455990
Alright, so Mars is about 6.4e23 kg of let's say pure iron, and assume the whole damn thing has temp 213K. Let's raise it to 5213K (picked for simplicity and quick check of Earth's core temp).
Iron has specific heat of 452J/kg/K, and latent heat of fusion (we have to melt it) of 272kJ/kg.

So (5000K * 6.4e23kg * 452J/kg/K) + 2.72e5J/kg * 6.4e23kg = 1.4e30J + 1.7e29J = 1.6e18TJ rounding like crazy.
Castle/Bravo nuke was about 6.3e4TJ, so it would only take 25 trillion of the largest nukes ever detonated (keep in mind this an upper bound - it would probably take trillions less in reality).

Inb4 someone misinterprets my false optimism as genuine. I knew it'd be a big number but I have to admit I was a little surprised.

I'm curious how that number compares to the potential energy of Mars' moons. But not so curious as to not go to sleep right now instead of trying to figure it out.

[Anonymous No.7456028]

Is there any reason to go to Mars - or any other rock - beyond tourism?

[Anonymous No.7456031]

>>7456028
We'll run out of space on Earth, and every planet is susceptible to catastrophic (extinction) events. Think of it as an insurance policy, or a home outside Florida you can go to when a hurricane is on its way.

[Anonymous No.7456057]

>>7456024
Actually now that I'm thinking of it I think the comparison to moon PE is usless beyond gauging qualitative magnitudes - since Fg is in equilibrium with Fc, you'd have to use a lot of energy to slow down the orbit before it would crash into Mars... not sure how much gain you'd get.

[Anonymous No.7456098]

>>7456024
If I'm not fucking up the math somewhere, shouldn't sending Phobos into a collision course with mars at its current velocity be enough to light it up?
But then you have the problems of mars' orbit being fucked up. But still, I think it should be possible by just crashing its moons into the planet.
Then you would have the cooling period which would be more than centuries.

[Anonymous No.7456109]

>>7456098
Where's your math? Also, Phobos won't run into Mars unless you slow it's orbit. As you slow it down, it'll migrate to a lower orbit. Once it reaches a critical point, the moon will break up into pieces (stress from stronger pull on the near side). You'd need a way to slow the moon's orbit to near zero, before it dropped low enough to break into pieces (which I imagine would make it a lot more complex to slow down). That would take however much kinetic energy is in the moon's orbit... which I imagine is huge. I'm curious how it compares to the gravitational potential energy.

[Anonymous No.7456114]

>>7456109
Also mars' orbit wouldn't change much at all - the only change to the macro orbit will be from whatever momentum you use to push the moon into it. Keep in mind Mars is 60 million times more massive than Phobos.

[Anonymous No.7456121]

>>7456114
Also from what I've read, the big celestial objects being tracked for potential collision with Earth would give collision energy no more than thousands of nukes... which extrapolating from above would still mean slinging millions or billions of these things at the planet - not going to happen. We're barely capable of sending a handful of people outside low earth orbit today.

[Anonymous No.7456135]

not within your lifetime

don't worry, maybe next century

[Anonymous No.7456166]

5 or 10 thousand coils of superconducting cable carrying a few thousand amps around the equator would do it.

[Anonymous No.7456167]

>>7455363

No? There are solar systems just few light years away.

Mars is just not good for real colonization. It's too small.

[Anonymous No.7456179]

is it accurate that a billion years ago, mars wouldve been more similar to earth? and that a billion years from now, venus will be more like earth today (and perhaps earth more like mars)?

[Anonymous No.7456183]

>>7456031
>We'll run out of space on Earth

For what?

[Anonymous No.7456258]

>>7455968
>, it doesn't have a magnetic field, making it very hostile to any living organism


that's bullshit. What protects us here on Earth from cosmic radiation and high energy particles is the atmosphere, not the magnetic field. During geomagnetic reversals the earths magnetic field becomes so weak it is practicaly nonexistent, and it happened thousands of times - and we are still here.

[Anonymous No.7456505]

>>7455332
venus has a shitty magnetosphere too, and yet look at its thick atmosphere
the reason is because it constantly replenishes it

[Anonymous No.7456532]

>>7456028

Too much humans, too less space. Also, more space to grow food.

[Anonymous No.7456533]

>>7456258
How can the atmosphere protect us? What would happen if one day our magnetosphere would be gone?

[Anonymous No.7456534]

>>7456179
Unlikely

[Anonymous No.7456625]

>>7455157
The answer is 50% yes.

Check this wiki article for more info...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terraforming_of_Mars

[Anonymous No.7456626]

>>7455538
Do you even realize that all planets rotate and revolve?

[Anonymous No.7456636]

>>7456626

it wouldn'd be attached to the surface just the atmosphere tho, read a book sometime?

[Anonymous No.7456732]

>>7456625

"Large amounts of elemental oxygen can be also found in metal oxides on the Martian surface, and in the soil, in the form of per-nitrates.[17]"

How can you get oxygen from oxides?

[Anonymous No.7456738]

>>7455363
two words: space colonies.

why would you want to live on a planet?

[Anonymous No.7456742]

>>7456738
Why live in a gravity well when you can live in a archipelago of space colonies?

[Anonymous No.7456807]

>>7456636
Pic related, this has actually already been done

[Anonymous No.7456814]

>>7456742
gravity wells are more secure - no malicious act we know of can turn them off :)

[Anonymous No.7457290]

>>7455954
This