Don’t just hope in Musk, immigrate to Mars, let us work together to turn Mars into a home

#How far are we from emigrating to Mars#

China’s Zhurong Mars rover successfully landed on Mars. Next, China and the United States are expected to return samples to Mars around 2031. Immediately afterwards, there is the much-anticipated manned mission.

So, when can we humans immigrate to Mars? Don't think it's far away. We will definitely see progress in our lifetime. However, it will take generations of efforts to finally achieve it.

After humans land on Mars, the next step is to transform the environment of Mars to make Mars livable, and eventually make Mars a second home for humans besides the earth. This is the so-called Mars Earth. change.

The biggest problem on Mars now is that the atmospheric pressure is too low. The atmospheric pressure on the surface of Mars is less than 1% of Earth's sea level, which is equivalent to the atmospheric pressure in the Earth's atmosphere 30 kilometers above the ground. Such a thin atmosphere requires astronauts to wear pressurized and airtight space suits to move around on the surface of Mars. This is because there is an Armstrong limit. When the atmospheric pressure drops to a certain level, that is, when it is lower than 0.0618 atmospheric pressure, the water in the human body will boil at body temperature, so the water in your body will boil quickly, and then the person will not Then. . .

On Earth, the height of Armstrong's limit is about 19,000 meters. Therefore, pilots who want to fly at high altitudes must wear pressurized and sealed high-altitude compensatory suits before they can fly. For example, the flying altitude of the U.S. U2 reconnaissance aircraft is usually maintained at 70,000 feet, or about 21,000 kilometers, so the pilot of the U2 aircraft must wear a flight suit similar to a spacesuit.

Therefore, the first step in terraforming Mars is to increase the atmospheric pressure of Mars. In fact, Mars in ancient times had a dense atmosphere due to volcanic eruptions and other reasons. It is believed that the atmospheric pressure is equivalent to that of the Earth. Moreover, the temperature is relatively high, and there is a large area of ??ocean on the surface of Mars. If it could be restored to the state of early Mars, Mars would be habitable. In more than 4 billion years, Mars has lost more than 99% of its atmosphere. What is going on?

It turns out that Mars suddenly lost its magnetic field about 4.2 billion years ago, and the reason is still unknown. After losing the protection of the magnetic field, solar wind particles gradually stripped away the atmosphere of Mars. Not only is the Martian atmosphere escaping into space, Mars is also losing its water. According to NASA estimates, Mars lost up to 33 meters of water in 4 billion years. The disappearance of the magnetic field is the fundamental reason why the Martian environment gradually becomes harsh.

To solve the atmospheric problem of Mars, there are many suggestions, such as dragging asteroids or comets to crash into Mars. Many asteroids in the outer solar system are thought to contain large amounts of ammonia (NH3), a greenhouse gas. There are also suggestions to release methane (CH4) to Mars. Methane is also a greenhouse gas, and both can help increase the temperature of Mars. Not to mention how difficult it is to drag asteroids from the outer reaches of the solar system to Mars. Due to the lack of protection from the magnetic field, any gas injected into Mars will be lost, which is equivalent to wasted effort.

What if we change our thinking and reshape the magnetic field for Mars? In 2017, NASA proposed a feasible method to provide magnetic field protection for Mars. At the Lagrangian point L1 of Mars, about 1 million kilometers away from Mars (320 times the radius of Mars), a giant superconducting electromagnet is placed to protect Mars with the magnetic field it forms. The so-called Lagrangian point L1 is a point on the line connecting Mars and the Sun. Due to the simultaneous interaction of the gravitational forces of Mars and the Sun, objects running at this point can be in a stable state relative to Mars. There are five Lagrangian points, which rotate synchronously with the Sun and Mars.

Obviously, the electromagnet at point L1 must be large enough. Due to the use of superconducting coils, the operation of the electromagnet can be maintained for many years after being energized. But the problem is that in order to provide global protection for Mars, one can imagine how big such an electromagnet would have to be. Someone did some calculations and found that the weight of the electromagnet coil is inversely proportional to the square of the coil's magnetic field strength and inversely proportional to the cube of the coil's diameter. The strongest superconducting magnetic field today is less than 100 Tesla. Assuming that a magnetic field of 1,000 Tesla can be achieved in the future and a coil with a diameter of 1,000 kilometers is made, the weight of the electromagnet will be 100,000 tons.

In any case, this is by far the most interesting idea for terraforming Mars. From a purely technical perspective, although it is currently not possible to achieve it, with the advancement of human technology, such an implementation is not out of reach. Some people have also refined the aforementioned ideas, such as considering filtering ultraviolet rays, how to better maintain stability, etc. Some even estimate the construction cost to be US$200 billion. Whether you believe it or not, I don’t believe it anyway.

Once the magnetic field problem is solved, the state of Mars will change for the better. According to research, after Mars restores its magnetic field protection, the carbon dioxide dry ice in the solid state at the poles of Mars will sublime, thereby increasing the temperature. If a large amount of carbon dioxide were released into the Martian atmosphere, the temperature of Mars could rise by as much as 10%. Of course, for Mars' global average temperature of -63, this is not nearly enough to melt the vast amounts of water on Mars.

So some people suggested building giant mirrors in the orbit of Mars to heat the north and south poles of Mars and further melt the dry ice and water there. When there is water vapor in the atmosphere of Mars, which is actually a greenhouse gas, the temperature of Mars will rise again. Of course, there are simpler and cruder ways. For example, Musk suggested that using hydrogen bombs to explode Mars might be cheaper than building space mirrors.

In short, providing magnetic field protection for Mars is the first step, and increasing the density and temperature of the Martian atmosphere is the second step. After these two steps are completed, you can enter the next stage: introducing earth life on Mars to further transform Mars. After research, scientists believe that some life on earth may be able to survive in the harsh conditions of Mars. After Mars is protected by a magnetic field and the temperature rises, more life on Earth will be able to thrive on Mars. An important candidate species is the cyanobacteria.

It is believed that blue-green bacteria are the earliest species on earth with the ability to photosynthesize, appearing about 2.7 billion years ago, or even 35 years ago. Before the emergence of blue-green bacteria, Earth's atmosphere lacked oxygen. Blue-green bacteria decompose carbon dioxide into oxygen through photosynthesis, greatly increasing the oxygen content on the earth. The current Martian atmosphere also lacks oxygen, but there is no shortage of carbon dioxide on Mars. After blue-green bacteria multiply massively on Mars, it can lay the foundation for more species to land on Mars. With the help of these organisms, Mars will become warmer and more Earth-like.

Therefore, transforming Mars into a habitable second home for humans is not pure science fiction. Perhaps in the next few hundred years, humans will start the terraforming of Mars.

We may not have the opportunity to visit or even settle on Mars, but our descendants will definitely have such an opportunity!

#Almighty Creator##