Is it realistic to believe we can terraform Mars into a place habitable by humans?

Answer 1

I don't think it's likely. I doubt our future missions will be able to establish anything beyond artificial colonies, small or large, either on the Martian surface or below it, and the chief reason for that is that Mars lacks any significant planetary magnetic field. Scientists examining the data returned by various robotic spacecraft in orbit around Mars found small, isolated magnetic fields in certain bodies of rock on Mars that are referred to as "archean-magnetic fields or pockets" left over from the time when Mars did have a planetary magnetic field but that's all tha's left, there's nothing else.

Planetary magnetic fields are formed when a planet's core is made up of huge masses of molten and solid iron and nickel-iron ore. The Inner Core of the Earth is a very hot (between 3,000 and 5,000 degrees Celsius) solid sphere of nickel-iron ore and other siderophilic metals and minerals about the size of our Moon, but remains solid due to the incredible pressures there. Outside of that is the Outer Core, a layer of somewhat cooler and less dense, although still extremely hot, molten (ie., liquid) iron and nickel-iron about 2, 000 kilometres or 1,200 miles thick, which makes it a sphere of molten metal about the size of the planet Mars.

The metals in the inner and outer core are excellent conductors of electricity, and various currents in the molten outer core generate significant electrical currents throughout the core system. These electrical currents in combination with the Earth's rotation help generate the magnetic field that surrounds the Earth, and it's that large, powerful magnetic field that protects the Earth (and us) from a huge, never ending flow of highly charged particles from Sun known as the Solar Wind. This high-velocity "wind" of highly charged protons and electrons can interact with the Earth's magnetic field and upper atmosphere near the magnetic poles, producing the Aurora phenomeon that are commonly known as the Northern and Southern Lights, those ghostly curtains of shimmering light that are often seen in Alaska, northern Canada, northern Europe, Siberia, and Antarctica. However, most of the solar wind is deflected around the Earth like a stream flowing around a rock, and moves off into deeper space.

But if there were no molten metal core in the Earth that generated those electrical currents that power the magnetic field, things would be very different. The charged particles of the solar wind would interact with the atmosphere on a much larger and more destructive scale, and would literally strip it away from the Earth over time, leaving it much thinner - or perhaps even nonexistant - and likely of a different composition than it is today, making most life, other than bacteria and microbes, next to impossible on the surface.

And that's the problem with Mars. Mars' inner and outer cores appear to be no longer molten, but are either in a much cooler, semi-solid state than the Earth's, or could be completely cooled and solidified, though that's probably unlikely. The chief reason for this is because Mars is signicantly smaller than the Earth in both size and mass, so it's core has cooled off and hardened much faster than ours. There could be other factors too such as the ratios and concentrations of radiogenic isotopes that can produce heat through long-term radioactive decay, or even the ratios of silicate minerals to iron and iron-nickel in the Martian core compared to the Earth's. The point is, without that molten metal core to act as a natural geo-dynamo to generate electrical currents and a magnetic field, there's nothing to hold back the onslaught of the solar wind on the Martian atmosphere and eroding it away.

So, what does this mean for terraforming Mars? Well, even with massive releases of Carbon Dioxide into the atmosphere from the Martian polar regions and permafrost, even if they were to add plants to convert the CO2 to oxygen to help bring up the atmospheric pressure and make it breathable - which could take hundreds or even thousands of years to accomplish - without a natural planetary magnetic field to stop or even slow the stripping of the atmosphere by the powerful solar wind, they would have to find ways of constantly replenishing the atmosphere artificially on a planetary scale, and that would likely be prohibitively more expensive than even the terraforming effort itself and probably unsustainable in the long term.

Unless they found a way of re-melting and liquifying the interior of an entire planet and kickstarting that giant dynamo again, I'd say terraforming Mars will stay in the realm of science fiction.

Of course, science and human progress, if we have that kind of wisdom, could always prove me wrong.

Cheers,

N.

Answer 2

Sure. We already have engines in city buses that exhaust clean air and water. Mars is somewhat smaller than earth so we should be able to terraform it in less time than the 100 years it took to pollute Earth.

Answer 3

The effect would be FATAL to the local inhabitants that have descended over eons of time following the lowering water table. Terraforming Mars would be GENOCIDE on a global scale! HANDS OFF MARS!

Answer 4

It is possible. 100 years ago man thought of many things as impossible but now they are a reality. You cannot say that anything is impossible in today's world.
We could take CO2 from the earth to Mars to pollute it so that green house effect is produced which in turn will melt the ice due to rise in temperature. So we will get water. But its going to be a long time before it happens.

Answer 5

I suppose it's possible, but we would live in terribly extreme temperatures. Even with an atmosphere, Mars is too far away from the sun to keep the heat we need for perpetual survival.

Answer 6

yes, look at all the climate change that is going on here on Earth, and Earth is some 6 times bigger than Mars. It will take some time, but it can be done...

Answer 7

No, Mars is just small enough that it can't hold on to an atmosphere that's sufficient for humans very long.

It would eventually die again. Small scale colonization in hermetically sealed units is more plausible.

Answer 8

Not a chance, our efforts on Mars are a complete waste. We should really be spending our trillions of dollars to improve Earth!

Answer 9

Yes it is indeed realistic! It wil cost hundreds of billions of dollars, but it can be done, and probably will be done in the next 50 years. I doubt it will be widely colonized, but instead used to produce food.

Answer 10

Yes but it would take hundreds if not thousands of years to ensure a safe habitat to live on.