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Yahoo
15-06-2025
- Science
- Yahoo
Scientists Reveal Easy Three-Step Plan to Terraform Mars
Terraforming, the act of radically transforming a planet's climate and environment to make it suitable for human habitation, currently belongs to the realm of science-fiction. But it's possible, at least in theory, and the idea of terraforming our nearest candidate planet for off-world colonization, Mars, has captivated us for generations. But how would we even begin to pull off such a monumental feat of engineering? You can basically boil it down to three simple steps, argue the authors of a recent study published in the journal Nature Astronomy, who are encouraged by recent breakthroughs in several fields. "Thirty years ago, terraforming Mars wasn't just hard — it was impossible," lead author Erika DeBenedictis, CEO of Pioneer Labs, told "But new technology like Starship and synthetic biology have now made it a real possibility." The inclusion of Starship, the Elon-Musk owned SpaceX megarocket, may warrant some pushback, since it's faced several high-profile failures and is likely far from being completed. But the fact that a spacecraft of its scale is even being attempted at all is at least worth something. Alright, but assuming we can make the trip to the Red Planet, how do we turn it into something approaching a green one? Recent advances in Mars science suggest that the planet's vast stores of ice harbor enough water to form an ocean around 1,000 feet deep across 3,800,000 million square miles of the planet. And according to the study, these frigid seas-in-waiting could start melting with a temperature increase of at least 30 degrees Celsius. (There also appears to be subterranean oceans hidden beneath the surface.) So that's the first step. One way this could be achieved is by harnessing solar sails as mirrors to focus more light on the planet. This could be combined with dispersing aerosols in the atmosphere to accelerate the greenhouse effect, while techniques such as coating the Martian surface with particles called silica aerogels could help drive heating locally. Combined, the researchers estimated that the 30 degrees of warming could be achieved within the century. The next step involves getting a little help from tiny, anaerobic creatures that can survive the harshest environments: extremophiles. To serve as "pioneer species," we would likely have to genetically engineer these organisms so they can withstand Mars' low pressure and its cold temperatures, which swing wildly. As the planet's ancient water is liberated from its icy tombs, the first surfaces bodies of water will be extremely salty brines, which many microbes on Earth are capable of surviving, the authors write. Once these microbial critters take hold, they'd go to work reforming the planet's chemistry and laying the groundwork for a food-producing ecosystem. The final phase, however, is both the longest and most ambitious: shoring up the Martian atmosphere so that it can support diverse plant life and other organisms. To pull it off, terraformers would need to create at least a 100 millibar oxygen atmosphere, the authors write, or about a tenth of the Earth's average atmosphere at sea level. We could initially achieve this in large, 100-meter-tall domed habitats, they speculate. Outside of these habitats, the spread of plant life would passively contribute oxygen to the atmosphere — but this process on its own would take a millennium. We could artificially accelerate this, write the authors, by freeing oxygen from the melted water, but more research is needed to determine if the materials necessary to accomplish that are abundant on Mars so that they wouldn't be required to be imported from Earth in prohibitively large quantities. "We now know that Mars was habitable in the past, from data returned by the Mars rovers, so greening Mars could be viewed as the ultimate environmental restoration challenge," coauthor Edwin Kite, an associate professor at the University of Chicago, told As tempting as it would be for humanity to rise to the challenge, there are serious ethical and scientific questions to be raised about terraforming an entire planet, especially one that may have harbored life in the past, or perhaps still does. "If we decide to terraform Mars, then we will really change it in ways that may or may not be reversible," coauthor Nina Lanza, a planetary scientist at Los Alamos National Laboratory, told "Mars is its own planet and has its own history. When we terraform, then we effectively don't have the opportunity to study that anymore, and we may lose knowledge about how planets form and evolve." Of course, this remains speculative — it's serious speculation, but speculation all the same. For all the promising advances we've made, we still haven't proven we can send a tiny payload of samples back from Mars, or even demonstrate that our putative best shot of getting there, Starship, is spaceworthy. But, as they say: all in good time. More on Mars: Elon Musk's "Hubris and Arrogance" Are Ruining Our Chances of Actually Getting to Mars, Says Leading Expert
Yahoo
12-06-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Terraforming Mars: Will It Happen? Is It Even Possible?
Last week, the Trump administration released a presidential budget request that would cancel almost all NASA science missions in order to focus on putting humans on Mars. It's mainly a showy, we-can-do-it project. Mere weeks before, the CEO of a small San Francisco non-profit argued in a new paper that we need to start seriously considering terraforming Mars. The priorities of the two groups could not be more different. The lead author of the paper, Erika DeBenedictis, received the prestigious Astera Fellowship to found Pioneer Labs, a small startup dedicated to designing microbes for terraforming. In The Case for Mars Terraforming Research, published last month in Nature Astronomy, she and her co-authors explain why terraforming studies are important. They also address how little we still know about potentially terraforming Mars. The main takeaway: Mars is not ready for humans, and humans are not ready for Mars. For some readers, the question of colonizing Mars isn't why, but how. If that's you, feel free to skip ahead. But others might approach the matter with more skepticism. Space colonization has become a political byword, but opposition is far from new. Perhaps most famously (at least among us science geeks), Gil Scott-Heron's 1970 poem Whitey on the Moon contrasted the poverty conditions of many Black Americans with the perceived excess of the Apollo missions. "I can't pay no doctor bill (but Whitey's on the Moon)," he wrote. "Ten years from now, I'll be paying still (while Whitey's on the Moon)." From this vantage point, is spending billions on terraforming research anything more than a nationalist vanity project? DeBenedictis and her team argue that it is important. "Technologies developed for Mars habitation, such as desiccation-resistant probably benefit Earth," they write. In an older interview with the Astera Institute, DeBenedictis summed up this aspect of the paper's argument. "Researching the possibility of a green Mars involves an infinite number of steps, all of which are in the right direction. How do we make human presence net-positive for the surrounding environment, rather than net-negative?" Unlike the Trump administration, the study doesn't advocate for current human spaceflight to Mars. Instead, it proposes taking the questions of colonization seriously, starting from first principles. Should we? How would we? What would the future of Mars look like? You'd be forgiven for assuming terraforming is just science fiction. But unlike faster-than-light travel, this staple of space adventure has a real scientific basis behind it. The new study lays out a timeline for terraforming Mars, and it's a lot more rapid than you might expect. They propose that careful bioengineering can accelerate the formation of an ecosystem. Instead of the billions of years it took Earth to turn green, Mars could achieve it in a few decades. The key to this rapid progression would be the development of microbes that thrive on Mars. Bypassing the labyrinth of evolution, humans could combine traits of Earth-based microbes such as temperature tolerance (surface temperature on Mars swings from -150°C to +20°C), invulnerability to fierce radiation and toxic gas, and no preference for atmospheric pressure. Such species could lead to an algae-covered Mars within decades. How scientists would prevent such hardy microbes from disrupting ecosystems on Earth, the team doesn't address. According to their estimates, if all the water ice on Mars melted, it could form 10,000,000 km2 of ocean at a depth of 300m. That's far less than the amount of liquid water on Earth, but it's enough to support long-term life on Mars. In turn, the melting of Martian ice caps, which include both water and carbon dioxide ice, would increase atmospheric pressure. A thicker atmosphere would lessen the dramatic temperature swings between Martian night and day, in turn allowing the proliferation of life. Martian soil also includes the necessary components for agriculture. Science fiction author Andy Weir exploited this so his marooned protagonist could grow potatoes in the hit 2017 science-fiction novel The Martian. Such calculations have led planetary scientists to scour Mars for evidence of past life, mostly through remote sensing. (Soil samples are notoriously difficult to return to Earth for testing.) So far, they haven't found any evidence of life, only evidence of conditions necessary for life at some point in the distant past. So, are we missing something? This is where DeBenedictis and Pioneer Labs' vision of Mars colonization research differs most dramatically from that of Elon Musk and SpaceX. The gist of the new paper is not that terraforming should happen now, but that scientists from different disciplines need to consider terraforming when designing future projects. In planetary science, for example, the paper argues for continued research on everything we don't know about Mars. For instance, ice covers one-third of the planet. What's under it? More ice? Networks of caves? Liquid water? The answer could portend wildly different visions of a bioactive Mars. They also call for extensive simulations of dust storms, a notable feature of Martian weather. Right now, planetary scientists understand dust storms on Mars fairly well. But how would dust change the atmosphere in a warmer, wetter Mars? How would the new climate alter the strength of the dust storms? But perhaps the biggest open question for terraforming is whether Mars has enough electron acceptors to support life. Electron acceptors are molecules capable of transferring electrons -- and thereby energy -- down a chemical chain. They include carbon dioxide and nitrates, and are vital not only for photosynthesis, but also for human respiration. Despite their affiliation with Pioneer Labs, which focuses on microbe engineering, the authors don't call for the scientific community to jump on the terraforming bandwagon. "While the possibilities are exciting, anything as big as modification of a planetary climate has major consequences and would require careful thought," they write. "But until we do more research, we do not even know what is physically or biologically possible." In other words: research now, decide later. "Priorities include quantifying H2O, N2, and CO2 sample return, test missions for proof of concept of warming methods, and climate feedback studies," they explain, linking various NASA science directives with terraforming questions. Current NASA goals for Mars already support human exploration, they add. "No abrupt change of course is needed." But an abrupt change of course is in store for NASA. The presidential budget request cancels all Mars research missions except for the Martian Moons eXploration, which is mostly funded by the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency. It still wants to put colonists on Mars, but without laying the scientific groundwork first. If science takes up Mars terraforming research, it will be without the United States.
Yahoo
03-06-2025
- Science
- Yahoo
Turning the Red Planet green? It's time to take terraforming Mars seriously, scientists say
When you buy through links on our articles, Future and its syndication partners may earn a commission. The concept of terraforming Mars — transforming the planet's climate to support life as we know it — has long belonged to the realm of science fiction. But a new study argues that it's time to take the idea seriously. "Thirty years ago, terraforming Mars wasn't just hard — it was impossible," said Erika DeBenedictis, CEO of Pioneer Labs and lead author of the new paper. "But new technology like [SpaceX's] Starship and synthetic biology have now made it a real possibility." The paper debates the complex ethical questions that must be considered if we're to terraform Mars and lays the blueprint for a potential path forward. "Advocates argue that more life is better than less, and terraforming Mars could mark humanity's first act of planetary stewardship with a net positive environmental impact," said DeBenedictis. Put succinctly, "living planets are better than dead ones," said study co-author Edwin Kite, an associate professor at the University of Chicago. "We now know that Mars was habitable in the past, from data returned by the Mars rovers, so greening Mars could be viewed as the ultimate environmental restoration challenge." Though full terraforming may take centuries, if not millennia, the long-term goal would be a Mars with stable liquid water, breathable oxygen and a thriving ecosystem. In the short term, this might mean only small patches of microbial life; in the distant future, there could perhaps be human cities on the planet. And if we reach the scale of cities, perhaps that's a stepping stone to even more significant exploration for our species. "As we move out into the galaxy, we will need base camps, and a base camp on the scale of the galaxy is a habitable planet," said Kite. For co-author Robin Wordsworth, a professor of environmental and planetary science at Harvard, the argument for terraforming Mars goes beyond human colonization to the propagation of life in general. "I see humanity as part of the biosphere, not separate from it," he said. "Life is precious — we know of nowhere else in the universe where it exists — and we have a duty to conserve it on Earth, but also to consider how we could begin to propagate it to other worlds." It's not all about looking beyond the bounds of Earth; terraforming Mars could also help us solve climate and sustainability challenges at home, advocates say. Nina Lanza, a planetary scientist at Los Alamos National Laboratory and a co-author on the paper, sees Mars as a prime testbed for planetary engineering. "If we want to learn how to modify our environment here on Earth, to keep it in a configuration that suits us and other life forms, maybe it would be better to experiment on Mars and say, 'Look, does this work?'" she said. "I personally would like to be a little more conservative with our home planet. This is the only place we can live." There are technological lessons to be learned, too. "Concretely, developing and adopting green technology on Earth often falters because it must compete with dirtier alternatives that benefit from decades of infrastructure investment and entrenched interests," said DeBenedictis. "Mars is a unique target market because it has no oil, no existing infrastructure and no status quo. For this reason, developing green technologies for space is a powerful strategy for maturing it for use on Earth." But we should take a few lessons from "Jurassic Park" when thinking about terraforming, some scientists say: Before asking, "Could we?" we need to ask, "Should we?" "If we decide to terraform Mars, then we will really change it in ways that may or may not be reversible," said Lanza. "Mars is its own planet and has its own history. When we terraform, then we effectively don't have the opportunity to study that anymore, and we may lose knowledge about how planets form and evolve." Most dramatically, we may destroy potential evidence of ancient Martian life, if such evidence exists. "If we modify the environment on Mars, we're going to change the chemistry of the surface and of the subsurface, eventually," said Lanza, pointing out that such actions might erase any traces of life on Mars. "I can't say for certain. It's very complicated, but it's a risk." Terraforming Mars would require massive changes, namely the warming of the planet to support both oxygen-producing microbes and liquid water. While all the technologies to terraform Mars are not yet available, the authors of the paper propose three phases of development. First, scientists would use abiotic climate engineering techniques — such as deploying reflective solar sails, dispersing nanoparticles, or laying aerogel tiles — to warm the surface by at least 30 degrees Celsius (86 degrees Fahrenheit), enough to melt subsurface ice and release trapped carbon dioxide. This warming would thicken the Martian atmosphere and potentially support the presence of stable liquid water. The second phase would introduce extremophile microbes — likely anaerobic and genetically engineered ones — capable of surviving in Mars' harsh conditions and kickstarting ecological succession. These organisms would begin producing oxygen and organic matter, slowly altering planetary chemistry. The third and longest phase would focus on building a complex biosphere, increasing atmospheric pressure and oxygen content to eventually support more advanced plant life, and, in the very long term, potentially allow humans to breathe unassisted. Related stories: — Could we really terraform Mars? — New Mars terraforming idea: engineered, heat-absorbing dust nanoparticles — Bad news for terraforming: Mars' atmosphere is lost in space The study's authors agree: If we're to have any chance of terraforming Mars, we must move forward on multiple fronts simultaneously. "Answering the question of when and how to start making other worlds habitable requires a clear understanding of the costs and benefits, which can only be adequately assessed based on a combination of theory and experiments, with input from diverse fields including physics, chemistry, materials science and biology," said Kite. Right now, we need to continue to study Mars. Lanza advocates for the Mars Sample Return mission, a NASA-European Space Agency campaign to bring home material collected on the Red Planet by the Perseverance rover. "The samples are incredibly well documented and analyzed to the best of our ability on Mars," she said. "Now we need to bring those back, because that's going to help us answer some of these fundamental questions. What is Mars made out of? Are there traces of life?" And, as we continue to visit the Red Planet, we can put terraforming concepts into practice. "Upcoming Mars surface missions in 2028 or 2031 should include small-scale experiments to de-risk terraforming strategies, such as warming localized regions," said DeBenedictis. Then, of course, we need to continue to innovate new technologies that will allow us to terraform Mars in the future. All this is to say, while fully terraforming Mars might take generations, the decisions start now. "This is how we get from the imagination and the concept to some reality that has totally changed our world," said Lanza. "We should really keep doing science — it's transformational." The new study was published last month in the journal Nature Astronomy.
