Is terraforming and or inhabiting Mars impossible?

Question

I saw a programme that basically explained to me that terraforming Mars (giving it a breatheable atmosphere) was impossible because very basically the planet is DEAD. The core of the planet is gone COLD and so is not like earth's anymore. The inner hot core is important as it generates the electro magnetic feild hundreds and thousands of miles around the earth which is vital for maintaining an atmosphere.

I may be confusing different topics here but it seems to me that its impossible to terraform Mars because it has gone cold and the core has burnt out.

What do you think?

I am asking if GIVING the planet an ATMOSPHERE is possible.

Answer 1

Yes, quite correct, Mars is too small and is dead at the core, has no tectonic plate movement etc. Mainly though, any air "made" would escape into space quicker than it could be made due to the weak gravity of Mars. Also, trying to find a plant that would actually grow at an extremely fast rate in the cold of Mars would be a bit dificult. The only place where any kind of habitation could be based is during the Martian Summer and would be at the equator where the noon time temp is around 20c

Answer 2

Sure it's possible.

Mars is the only planet that comes close to being inhabitable, and mankind 1) has an inborn need to explore, and 2) is going to outgrow earth eventually. So it's inevitable that we'll go to Mars, and very, very probable that we'll colonize it. The big question is how soon? 50 decades? 5 centuries?

We know that Mars has water (frozen and/or underground), carbon dioxide (which contains oxygen), and nitrogen - all the elements necessary for life. The martian atmosphere is mostly carbon dioxide - not great for breathing, but great for the greenhouse effect - which can be used to warm up the planet, overcoming the cold issue you point out.

There have been many papers, web sites, and sections of books that deal with terraforming Mars. In summary, we'll have to do some combination of heating the surface (say, with large orbiting mirrors) and increasing greenhouse gasses in the atmosphere (for example, smashing a methane-rich asteroid into Mars).

The links below contain a lot of info on how Mars can be terraformed.

Answer 3

There isn't any way possible to GIVE a habitable atmosphere to other planets, and even if there was, right now there is no way of transporting it to the planet.

A planet's atmosphere can never be done artificially, it comes out of the planet naturally at the early stages of the planet's life.
Mars does have an atmosphere but it is unhabitable by us humans or any other erath creature. On the other hand mars cannot sustain much atmosphere due to it small size. Atmosphere is on earth only because it came out of Earth and it was kept here by earths gravity.

Also, even if we could give mars an atmosphere, it is far too cold, has no water, has critical weather conditions and is very far from the sun.

Hope this helps =)

Answer 4

I recently asked about Mars' lack of an atmosphere and found out about it's dead core. Since then I've been pondering what could be done and I'm sure that it's more science fiction at this point, but could nuclear reactors at each pole be built to create a superficial magnetic field?

Just some speculation rom a sci-fi fan at this point. I don't think the size or density of the planet has much to do with it seeing as how venus' atmosphere is 90 times that of earth's and it's smaller and less dense than earth. And not for nothing, Mar's crust shows that at one point, it had liquid water in oceans and rivers, so at some point, it had an atmosphere similar to ours.

http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index;_ylt=AlH_MIR94JYbOF5OuooKCmjsy6IX?qid=20060804160106AAjhxuI

Answer 5

Mars does have that key ingredient -water, in it's
ice caps and it does have wind. And we've seen that
microscopic life can demonstrate incredible tolerance to
hostile environments. For example the water bear can
endure temperature extremes from near boiling to
-150 F and radiation that would kill a human ten times over
and acids and vacuums etc. There are the thermal synthetic creatures that thrive near thermal vents on
the bottom of oceans while consuming hot sulfur and
make food not with light but heat.
These are the kinds of starters life would need in the
first stages of Terra forming. It might take hundreds of
years with man's help to lay down a base of organic material and change the atmosphere. Then lichens and ferns possibly genetically modified for the next stages
and then worms- nature's soil builders. In the middle phase the environment would be ready for insects and
higher level plants. In the last phase would come vertebrates and finally humans in a self sustainable ecosystem.
All along humans would assist with nuclear and solar powered atmospheric and soil conversion factories to suit the needs of each succeeding phase.

Answer 6

Inhabiting Mars might be possible, but I think Terraforming it is something that might take a long time, because of exactly what you said, the planet has gone cold. Life has a certain level of tolerance of things, go beyond that and life can't exist. The temperature is either too hot or too cold,and the winds and weather are too extreme.

Answer 7

No, you can't give it an atmosphere, because like you said, Mars is a dead planet. It's fully cooled down inside so you'll never get any plant or animal life on it, and will not be able to hold a proper atmosphere.

Hence, inhabiting Mars is impossible, even if there was water on it somewhere.

Answer 8

nicely, that relies upon on the time-scale in touch. If shall we' say icy debris / asteroids from the outer asteroid belt and per chance elsewhere were despatched into Mars area, it can take 1000's of years, it can be an engineering challenge on the size of worlds. Is it no longer a probability, no, we've all the pre-needful technologies at present. yet what we lack is the competence and adventure to reliably get to Mars and construct business scale elements and centers in area. This calls for no longer a lot "new" technologies, a lot as making use of our technical recognize-a thanks to fixing the different complications of terraforming. If Mars truly has that's own biosphere , cave micro organism or maybe effortless lichen like organisms, terraforming promises a higher moral difficulty, yet presuming Mars has existence we deem unremarkable or Earth suitable , bombarding Mars with water from different area gadgets, is an fullyyt conceivable job. yet our skills at tremendous manipulation of the ambience are crude - at suited, so all we in reality recognize a thanks to do - at the second one is "upload water" which will deliver some added aspects alongside to be confident, yet that is per chance fairly far to the purpose. That it can value trillions or quadrillions of money, and take 1000's or 1000's of years, is major to understand, yet on the top of the day, we benefit a international , that we are able to apply as we see in good structure. on the size of 1000's of 1000's of years, Mars could favor to be both replenished often times, or the composition of the ambience altered so as that Mars could keep it by ability of that's gravity. Titan is a lot smaller and keeps a thick environment, likely with the aid of ice-volcanism or maybe an curiously complicated water-cycle in accordance with methane, this also meets a large type of the could haves for a device that could help existence, albeit at -one hundred seventy tiers. Mars once oceans and a biosphere are standard would truly change into self regulating with reference to that's environment.

Answer 9

yeah, so what if the planet isnt magnetic, it has gravity. besides mars does have an atmosphere its just really really thin and not breathable. i think anyway could be wrong

Answer 10

i don't think it is impossible to go to the mars and live there but it may take time. so, people will probably is start living there after 30 years!