What Would It Take to Make Mars Earth-Like

What Would It Take to Make Mars Earth-Like

Getting water, eating salad, using charging devices, and generating fresh air can all be done on other planets if you have the four necessary ingredients: air, water, Earth, and fire. I'm going to tell you how to get each one on Mars, so that you'll never have to worry about running out of anything again. It turns out that water used to be a bigger problem than we thought-- %tone% nearly one-third of the planet used to be covered in an ocean called Oceanus borealis. You won't believe me when I tell you this, but it's true!

Once Upon a Time about 3.8 to 4.1 billion years ago the climate on Mars

was warmer and the atmosphere was denser but over time the climatic conditions changed dramatically and this once Endless Ocean simply evaporated into the atmosphere. According to estimates only about one

percent of all water evaporated while 99 is still locked on the red planet so there are two sources of water now the Ice polar caps and the Rocks Ice

polar caps are pretty simple to understand as we have the very same

thing on Earth but rocks containing water.

I mean my juicer won't handle Stones inside it but let's delve into

these Stones just a little bit for starters there are at least four

types of hydrous minerals on Mars there are hydrous Clays made of silicon oxygen and the cool thing about them is that they can even contain magnesium and iron which will come in handy once we start dwelling on Mars

Next is hydrous sulfates which are sulfur based don't ew I know you thought of the rotten egg smell but it's typical of hydrogen sulfide and not just sulfur these minerals have Water Incorporated right into their chemical formulas next comes hydrous silica which also has water locked in its formula carbonate salts found on Mars may not contain actual H2O but they can only form if there's water nearby so they just prove there used to be an ocean but if the scientists don't come up with an idea on.

how to extract water from those rocks there's a backup plan in 2020 researchers discovered liquid water sources which may be a part of a

huge network of underground saltwater Lakes.

so I guess we'll find a way to stay hydrated on Mars. We can either look for those water sources better or just invent some technologically advanced juicer to squeeze water out of those stones. The red planet may seem to us as a lifeless desert where nothing can grow but today it's a misconception as there's been a couple of recent updates concerning the agricultural potential of Mars in 2022 a group of scientists made something unbelievable they managed to grow an earth plant on Mars disclaimer.

It's not that they plowed Mars watered, it added fertilizers and patiently waited for the first sprouts to show up they experimented on Earth but the conditions they created were purely Martian you see a plant needs soil water food and sunlight to grow food and sunlight can be created artificially so the scientists focused on the soil and water in their experiments there's not much Mars can offer in terms of soil but it's rich in basalt plants don't fancy residing in Basalt as it doesn't have many nutrients.

But still some of them aren't that picky when it comes to soil as we already know water on Mars is problematic too but it can be found in limited amounts still it can't be used for agricultural needs due to its chemical composition long story short it's just way too salty for any plant out there to like it but to keep the experiment true to life the scientists started to look for possible ways of desalinating water. Thus they added the bacteria known a

siny coccus and even though the saline levels decreased dramatically it was still not enough to satisfy the finicky plants luckily the scientists had Plan B and it worked out they took the bacteria desalinated water and filtered it through basalt in the end they noticed that the resulting water was suitable for the plants but that's just a theory let's see what we can actually grow on Mars the scientists experimented with turnips lettuce radishes and Alfalfa at first turnips lettuce and radishes refused to flourish and basalt and feed on that filtered water but then Alfalfa came into play and it left the scientists stunt the plant did really well in Martian conditions this might seem to be the logical end of the experiment and after all.

Alfalfa is pretty cool it's rich in vitamin K it has vitamin C some

vitamins B zinc and phosphorus and you can Google a bunch of nice salads with alfalfa sprouts but it has yet another property that may be a total game changer because of its Deep Roots. Alfalfa can help fix soil nitrogen fertility so once the scientists harvested the first Martian Alfalfa they immediately planted turnips lettuce and radishes back this time the crops did way better and the scientists even noticed something they didn't expect: turnip yields increased by 311 percent.

I guess Alfalfa has all the chances to become the star of Mars terraforming whoops here comes the bad news even though you can theoretically stay

hydrated on Mars and enjoy a fresh salad at the moment there's almost no way you can enjoy some fresh air on the red planet

Hey you've noticed I said almost that even though Mars's atmosphere is 96 carbon dioxide we already know how to make small amounts of oxygen there to meet the Mars oxygen in situ resource utilization experiment but you can call it Moxie. It's a little helper that works together

with Mars rovers this little guy can isolate oxygen on Mars and it already

managed to produce 5 grams of it it may sound like nothing but 5 grams of oxygen equals 10 minutes of breathing for now Moxie is for scientific use only but it can actually help facilitate missions on Mars thing is it's easier to produce oxygen directly on the spot than transport it from Earth to Mars at the moment Moxie is not powerful enough but once the scientists invent its descender.

The air situation on Mars will change for the fire to burn we need one

essential thing which is oxygen and we don't want to waste the results of

Moxie's hard work especially if there can be alternatives historically people would use fire to cook get warm and probably scare away some uninvited guests like saber-toothed tigers today we can use electricity to cook and

get warm and no saber-toothed tiger has ever been spotted roaming the red planet so let's see how people can generate electricity on Mars there are quite a few options solar geothermal and wind energy can be used on Mars almost the same way we use them on Earth solar energy is promising.

But it still won't be as effective as on Earth sunlight on Mars is only 43 as strong as it is in Earth's orbit so producing electricity this way will take more effort don't forget about dust storms that aren't rare on Mars during them the sunlight gets sort of blocked so should. We ever rely on solar energy on Mars we must be ready for occasional electrical outages.

The next problem is seasonal variations so we could benefit from solar power for only some months of the Martian year and of course no solar energy at night anyways this option might work out but it should be combined with some alternative for instance wind power wind turbines won't have any problems working during the dust storm and they also work

at night seems like these two sources are a perfect combo but geothermal

energy could be a cool backup plan though it can even work on Mars better

than on Earth for a few reasons.

First, the atmospheric pressure is lower on Mars so more volumes of steam can be generated to drive the turbine.

Second Mars's surface temperature is lower and it can help too as it will increase the efficiency due to thermodynamic laws

Lastly, no water is needed we could use liquid carbon dioxide instead and it would work perfectly unlike water liquid carbon dioxide is free that's it for today so hey if you pacified your curiosity.