Earlier this week , thousands of scientific discipline - fable writer , as well as a particularly notable billionaire , had cold urine cat all over their fantastical visions of the future .
A fresh NASA - backed study inNature Astronomyclaimed that it ’s not presently potential to terraform the environment of Mars to make it land - like and , ultimately , inhabitable . Part of this gigantic task would involve discharge the Red Planet ’s store of atomic number 6 dioxide immobilise in the satellite ’s rock and ice to significantly increase the atmospherical C dioxide pressure . This thicker air would warm up the Martian environment and allow it to support melted piss .
However , the researchers worked out that Mars does not retain enough carbon copy dioxide that could much be put back into the atmosphere to warm the Red Planet .
Never one to shy aside from a Twitter spat , Elon Musk took it upon himself to challenge the close .
Musk has previouslyexpressed a slap-up interestin the idea of colonize and transforming our closest terrestrial neighbour , even suggested it would be potential to terraform Mars bynuking its pole . Although hedidn’t specialize what enquiry backed up the latest claims , he did later cite the name of NASA planetary scientificChristopher McKay , who ’s somewhat of an expert in the field of operation of terraforming .
“ It ’s actually a bit more difficult than that,”Discover Magazinetweeted back , revealing they’ddecided to ask the scientistsinvolved in the studyabout Musk ’s response . They reaffirm that the process is impossible by today ’s known technology , just as the original sketch said .
However , what if Musk was being more farsighted and visionary with his projections ? Well , the jury is to out . They suggest that Musk ’s idea would only be viable with a satellite - sized mirror that would pummel Mars with Department of Energy and force it to release its carbon dioxide . This , as you may suppose , would not be feasible in the foreseeable time to come .
Even if this technology was available , it ’s not certain that Mars would contain the necessary amounts of abeyant carbon dioxide anyway . The original study suggests that hypothetically fade all of Mars ’ sparkler caps would only discharge about 1.5 percent of the carbon dioxide necessary . As for the rocks , they would be needed to be prepare up at a temperature of 300 ° C ( 572 ° degree Fahrenheit ) and it would only increase the insistence to about 7 percent that of Earth .
The only resolution would be accessing atomic number 6 - bear mineral bury deep in the Martian Earth’s crust . However , how we could reach and " liberal " this atomic number 6 is unknown as it would need ridiculous amounts of energy , knowledge about the major planet , and mechanical wizardry .
For the meter being , base on what we really have a go at it , terraforming Mars remains a very , very upstage pipedream .
Sorry , Elon .
