3 ms·

I imagine mars would be terraformed eventually over time. It just needs a little atmosphere to get going

krapp 7y ago
Unfortunately, due to Mars' lower gravity and lack of a magnetically active core, not only can it not hold a substantial atmosphere to begin with, any such atmosphere would inevitably be blown away by solar winds. So there's that. Maybe we can put a big dome around the whole thing like Planet Druidia.
- ceejayoz 7y ago
  The timeline for that process is millennia, so if we come up with a continual process for replenishment that works on shorter timeframes, it's maintainable. https://www.nasa.gov/press-release/nasa-mission-reveals-speed-of-solar-wind-stripping-martian-atmosphere https://www.nasa.gov/press-release/nasa-mission-reveals-spee... > MAVEN measurements indicate that the solar wind strips away gas at a rate of about 100 grams (equivalent to roughly 1/4 pound) every second. "Like the theft of a few coins from a cash register every day, the loss becomes significant over time," said Bruce Jakosky, MAVEN principal investigator at the University of Colorado, Boulder. "We've seen that the atmospheric erosion increases significantly during solar storms, so we think the loss rate was much higher billions of years ago when the sun was young and more active.”
  - krapp 7y ago
    Fair enough, but that still results in an inherently unstable biosphere.
    - 0xffff2 7y ago
      The entire solar system is an inherently unstable construct. Luckily for us the instability is on a scale of billions of years. Terraforming mars would be similar. It would be a herculean effort that would take several lifetimes to complete, but the result could be stable on the scale of millions of years without further input. With a bit of maintenance it could well be stable for the life of the solar system.
christiansakai 7y ago
Genuinely curious, is it possible to make atmosphere in Mars just like in Earth? Isn't this because of Earth's unique gravity that we have an atmosphere? I'm not a physicist so please excuse my ignorance.

Unfortunately, due to Mars' lower gravity and lack of a magnetically active core, not only can it not hold a substantial atmosphere to begin with, any such atmosphere would inevitably be blown away by solar winds. So there's that. Maybe we can put a big dome around the whole thing like Planet Druidia.

ceejayoz 7y ago
The timeline for that process is millennia, so if we come up with a continual process for replenishment that works on shorter timeframes, it's maintainable. https://www.nasa.gov/press-release/nasa-mission-reveals-speed-of-solar-wind-stripping-martian-atmosphere https://www.nasa.gov/press-release/nasa-mission-reveals-spee... > MAVEN measurements indicate that the solar wind strips away gas at a rate of about 100 grams (equivalent to roughly 1/4 pound) every second. "Like the theft of a few coins from a cash register every day, the loss becomes significant over time," said Bruce Jakosky, MAVEN principal investigator at the University of Colorado, Boulder. "We've seen that the atmospheric erosion increases significantly during solar storms, so we think the loss rate was much higher billions of years ago when the sun was young and more active.”
- krapp 7y ago
  Fair enough, but that still results in an inherently unstable biosphere.
  - 0xffff2 7y ago
    The entire solar system is an inherently unstable construct. Luckily for us the instability is on a scale of billions of years. Terraforming mars would be similar. It would be a herculean effort that would take several lifetimes to complete, but the result could be stable on the scale of millions of years without further input. With a bit of maintenance it could well be stable for the life of the solar system.

christiansakai 7y ago

Genuinely curious, is it possible to make atmosphere in Mars just like in Earth? Isn't this because of Earth's unique gravity that we have an atmosphere? I'm not a physicist so please excuse my ignorance.