“In order to establish a long-term human presence on Mars, serious consideration must be given to reshaping the planet,” the team writes in a new paper to be printed in Acta Astronautica in January 2022. Today. “One of the main requirements for such reclamation is to protect the planet’s magnetic field which Mars does not currently have.” Earth has a strong magnetic field, but Mars is very weak and fragmented.
According to the paper, one of the first goals of rehabilitation was to increase atmospheric pressure above the Armstrong limit, the limit that would allow humans to survive without wearing full-body compression suits. Under this pressure limit, the water in the lungs, eyes, and saliva spontaneously boils, the team writes in their paper — and it’s hard to imagine we’d get so much done on any planet where humans turn to meat stew. It goes without saying that creating a magnetic field requires huge resources; The absolute minimum energy required is about 10 joules, which is roughly the energy consumption of all humanity on Earth in 2020. This means that we may need to use nuclear fission reactors as an energy source, which the team hopes will probably be needed for permanent colonization. In any case.
While each option has its pros and cons, the team concluded that rekindling the Martian core was the least feasible, and that creating a plasma torus with scattered lunar material would not significantly erode the Martian satellite. This latter option also somewhat mimics the plasma torus created in Io’s orbit around Jupiter. Among those eyeing permanent colonies, says SpaceX CEO Elon Musk vociferously – who seems to think we don’t have much time before Earth becomes uninhabitable – who also speculates about the rehabilitation of the Red Planet.
Scientists have suggested several ways to do this. This involves restarting and rotating the Martian core, creating a continuous solid loop or loop of solid-state magnetism, or using a series of sources coupled to a controlled plasma beam or torus — a large ring, basically — of charged particles with artificial currents. . This means that there is an option to include instruments in large-scale locations such as the Martian surface and Martian orbit. So how much magnetic field would it take to protect Mars and the humans who might one day live there? Surprisingly, the team wrote that the force required to bend the solar wind is the same as that of a regular fridge magnet. But they need to produce it across the planet, which is a huge challenge.
More on life on Mars: Elon Musk: We have to go to Mars because of Earth’s “nuclear Armageddon.” Although the authors warn that they don’t say that a magnetic field is necessary for life on Mars, it seems very difficult to imagine the continued existence of Mars without it. It’s interesting, to say the least, to have NASA’s chief scientist on board.
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Space news highlights
- Title: Scientists propose strengthening of Mars’ magnetic field to make it habitable
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