Humans one step closer to living on Mars as new theory aims to make planet habitable
Elon Musk has big ambitions to colonize Mars by 2050, and a new scientific discovery could make those dreams a reality.
A team of scientists have proposed an 'innovative' way to warm the Red Planet by more than 18 degrees Fahrenheit in just a matter of months, which they believe would be enough to sustain human life.
They proposed injecting large quantities of Martian dust into the atmosphere to improve its ability to trap heat, just like water vapor and carbon dioxide do on Earth.
Shooting about 10 liters of dust, consisting of iron and aluminum, per second for at least a decade could warm the planet from -85F to 86F.
A groundbreaking new discovery suggests that Elon Musk's dream of terraforming Mars might not be as far-fetched as people think.
Elon Musk dreams of building a Martian city that could sustain a million people by 2050.
Musk himself has said that he plans to use the natural resources on Mars to 'terraform' its existing atmosphere and make the planet warmer, wetter and overall more like Earth.
This study suggests he may be onto something.
'It’s not that often you get some really quite new, innovative idea for terraforming,' Colin McInnes, a space engineer at the University of Glasgow not involved with the work, told Science Magazine.
'The gap between where Mars is and where Mars could be for habitability is narrower than we might think,' he added.
The researchers' approach is actually based on the same atmospheric mechanism that's driving climate change here on Earth: the greenhouse effect.
Currently, Mars' atmosphere is so thin that heat from the sun easily escapes the planet's surface.
The microscopic size and spherical shape of Martian dust mean that it isn't great at absorbing radiation or reflecting heat back down to the surface.
But the research team believes they could use the iron and aluminum in the dust to engineer nine-micrometer-long rods.
That's roughly twice the size of a Martian dust particle, but smaller than a speck of glitter.
Currently, the surface of Mars is a freezing, barren desert. But scientists have come up with a simple way to warm up the Red Planet.
Terraforming Mars' atmosphere would bring us one step closer to establishing a human colony on the red planet.
When the researchers tested how their particles would absorb heat radiation and reflect it down to the planet's surface, they found 'unexpectedly huge effects,' Samaneh Ansari, a Ph.D. student at Northwestern University and the study's lead author, told Science Magazine.
This approach would require about two million tons of particles per year, but manufacturing them would be relatively easy because the ingredients are right there on Mars.
That sets this new approach apart from previous schemes to globally warm the Red Planet.
By comparison, this method would be roughly 5,000 times more efficient, the researchers claimed.
This strategy would still take decades, but it seems logistically easier than any other ideas proposed so far.
Warming up Mars would be a critical first step towards making this planet a suitable home for humans, or any other life form for that matter.
It would free up the little water that's frozen in polar ice caps beneath the planet's surface, and make Mars a more suitable place for agriculture and out own bodies.
Mars' atmosphere is too thin to trap heat at the surface. Scientists want to inject it with engineered dust to make it more insulating.
This is all great news for Musk. But warming up Mars is just one step down a long road he'll need to travel before he can colonize the Red Planet.
Even with this new atmosphere, humans still wouldn't be able to breathe the air on Mars because it doesn't contain enough oxygen.
Plus, the air pressure on Mars is 150 times lover than on Earth, which would cause human blood to boil.
Musk will have to solve these problems and more before he builds a bustling Martian metropolis. But this new research brings him a little bit closer to realizing his dream.
