NASA wants to send astronauts to Mars in the 2030s, so the race is on to make the planet more hospitable. Scientists think they have discovered a first step. They have found a way to warm the Red Planet enough to support microbial life.
This is not the first study to propose a method to heat Mars, but it is the most effective because it uses resources already on the planet. Other ideas rely on transporting materials from Earth or mining them on Mars, both of which would be incredibly difficult. This new method simply uses the abundant dust particles in the Martian atmosphere.
The average temperature on Mars is -62˚C. By engineering the dust particles, we could increase temperatures on the planet by over 20˚C. This might not sound like a lot, but it would change Mars from frigidly sterile to merely cold — enough for microscopic life to survive.
Terraforming
Terraforming the planet in this way would slowly change its atmosphere. As more plants grow and photosynthesize, more oxygen is released. A huge barrier to living on Mars is that we can’t breathe without assistance. There is simply not enough oxygen. This would begin the process of changing that.
“This research…brings us one step closer to the long-held dream of establishing a sustainable human presence on Mars,” said Edwin Kite, co-author of the new study.
The Martian rovers have taught us that Mars’s dust is rich in iron and aluminum. At the moment, the dust actually cools the planet slightly. But if you tinkered with the dust particles to give them a short, rod-like shape, they would trap heat and scatter sunlight, increasing the surface temperature.
If you continuously released the engineered particles into the atmosphere at a rate of 30 liters per second, the 20˚C temperature change would occur within months. But that volume of release is difficult; practically, it might take decades to affect the atmosphere significantly.
