What is the Habitable Zone?

We’ve found hundreds of exoplanets in the galaxy. But only a few of them have just the right combination of factors to hold life like Earth’s.

Artist’s impression of the habitable zone around variously sized stars. Credit: NASA

The weather in your hometown is downright uninhabitable. There’s scorching heatwaves, annual tyhpoonic deluges, and snow deep enough to bury a corn silo.
The bad news is planet Earth is the only habitable place we know of in the entire Universe. Also, are the Niburians suffering from Niburian made climate change? Only Niburian Al Gore can answer that question.
We as a species are interested in habitability for an assortment of reasons, political, financial, humanitarian and scientific. We want to understand how our own climate is changing. How we’ll live in the climate of the future and what we can do to stem the tide of what our carbon consumption causes.
There could be agendas to push for cleaner energy sources, or driving politicians towards climate change denial to maintain nefarious financial gain.
We also might need a new lilypad to jump to, assuming we can sort out the travel obstacles. The thing that interests me personally the most is, when can I see an alien?
The habitable zone, also known as the “Goldilocks Zone”, is the region around a star where the average temperature on a planet allows for liquid water with which to make porridge. It’s that liquid water that we hunt for not only for our future uses, but as an indicator of where alien life could be in the Universe.
Problems outside this range are pretty obvious. Too hot, it’s a perpetual steam bath, or it produces separate piles of hydrogen and oxygen. Then your oxygen combines with carbon to form carbon dioxide, and then hydrogen just buggers off into space.
This is what happened with Venus. If the planet’s too cold, then bodies of water are solid skating rinks. There could be pockets of liquid water deep beneath the icy surface, but overall, they’re bad places to live.
We’ve got this on Mars and the moons of Jupiter and Saturn. The habitable zone is a rough measurement. It’s a place where liquid water might exist.

“The Chemistry of the Solar System” by Compound Interest’s Andy Brunning

Unfortunately, it’s not just a simple equation of the distance to the star versus the amount of energy output. The atmosphere of the planet matters a lot. In fact, both Venus and Mars are considered to be within the Solar System’s habitable zone.
Venusian atmosphere is so thick with carbon dioxide that it traps energy from the Sun and creates an inhospitable oven of heat that would quickboil any life faster than you can say “pass the garlic butter”.
It’s the opposite on Mars. The thin atmosphere won’t trap any heat at all, so the planet is bun-chillingly cold. Upgrade the atmospheres of either planet and you could get worlds which would be perfectly reasonable to live on. Maybe if we could bash them together and we could spill the atmosphere of one onto the other? Tell Blackbolt to ring up Franklin Richards, I have an idea!
When we look at other worlds in the Milky Way and wonder if they have life, it’s not enough to just check to see if they’re in the habitable zone. We need to know what shape their atmosphere is in.
Astronomers have actually discovered planets located in the habitable zones around other stars, but from what we can tell, they’re probably not places you’d want to live. They’re all orbiting red dwarf stars.

Artists impression of Gliese 581g. Credit: Lynette Cook/NSF

It doesn’t sound too bad to live in a red tinted landscape, provided it came with an Angelo Badalamenti soundtrack, red dwarf stars are extremely violent in their youth. They blast out enormous solar flares and coronal mass ejections. These would scour the surface of any planets caught orbiting them close enough for liquid water to be present.
There is some hope. After a few hundred million years of high activity, these red dwarf stars settle down and sip away at their fuel reserves of hydrogen for potentially trillions of years. If life can hold on long enough to get through the early stages, it might have a long existence ahead of it.
When you’re thinking about a new home among the stars, or trying to seek out new life in the Universe, look for planets in the habitable zone.
As we’ve seen, it’s only a rough guideline. You probably want to check out the place first and make sure it’s truly liveable before you commit to a timeshare condo around Gliese 581.
Do you think habitable planets are common in the Milky Way? Tell us what your perfect planet environment might be in the comments below.
Source: Universe Today, written by Fraser Cain

NASA Prepares for Future Space Exploration with International Undersea Crew

NEEMO 16 aquanauts Kimiya Yui and Tim Peake pose with their support diver and astronaut Mike Gernhardt in the DeepWorker single-person submarine.
Credits: NASA

NASA will send an international crew to the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean this summer to prepare for future deep space missions during the 14-day NASA Extreme Environment Mission Operations (NEEMO) 20 expedition slated to begin July 20.
NEEMO 20 will focus on evaluating tools and techniques being tested for future spacewalks on a variety of surfaces and gravity levels ranging from asteroids to the moons of Mars and the Martian surface.
“The NEEMO team is particularly excited about this mission as it is a huge milestone to have achieved 20 missions at Aquarius over the past 15 years,” NEEMO Project Lead Bill Todd said. “Living and working in the highly operational, isolated and extreme environment of the aquatic realm has provided significant science and engineering for the benefit of human spaceflight. It has also clearly proven to be as close to spaceflight as is possible here on Earth.”
The mission will test time delays in communications due to the distance of potential mission destinations. The crew also will assess hardware sponsored by the European Space Agency (ESA) that allows crew members to read the next step in a procedure without taking their hands or eyes away from the task using a tablet, a smartphone and a head-mounted interface.
ESA astronaut Luca Parmitano will command the NEEMO 20 mission aboard the Aquarius laboratory. Parmitano flew in space during Expeditions 36 and 37 aboard the International Space Station in 2013, where he spent 166 days living and working in the extreme environment of microgravity. He conducted two spacewalks on his first spaceflight.
Parmitano will be joined by NASA astronaut Serena Aunon, NASA EVA Management Office engineer David Coan and Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency astronaut Norishige Kanai.
The NEEMO crew and two professional habitat technicians will live 62 feet (19 meters) below the surface of the Atlantic Ocean in Florida International University’s Aquarius Reef Base undersea research habitat 6.2 miles (5.4 nautical miles) off the coast of Key Largo, Florida.
Source: NASA

New from NASA’s New Horizons: Increasing Variety on Pluto’s Close Approach Hemisphere, and a ‘Dark Pole’ on Charon

Posted Yesterday

NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft doesn’t pass Pluto until July 14 – but the mission team is making new discoveries as the piano-sized probe bears down on the Pluto system.

In a long series of images obtained by New Horizons’ telescopic Long Range Reconnaissance Imager (LORRI) May 29-June 19, Pluto and its largest moon, Charon, appear to more than double in size. From this rapidly improving imagery, scientists on the New Horizons team have found that the “close approach hemisphere” on Pluto that New Horizons will fly over has the greatest variety of terrain types seen on the planet so far. They have also discovered that Charon has a “dark pole” – a mysterious dark region that forms a kind of anti-polar cap.
“This system is just amazing,” said Alan Stern, New Horizons Principal Investigator, from the Southwest Research Institute, Boulder, Colorado. “The science team is just ecstatic with what we see on Pluto’s close approach hemisphere: Every terrain type we see on the planet—including both the brightest and darkest surface areas —are represented there, it’s a wonderland!
“And about Charon—wow—I don’t think anyone expected Charon to reveal a mystery like dark terrains at its pole,” he continued. “Who ordered that?”

These images, taken by New Horizons’ Long Range Reconnaissance Imager (LORRI), show numerous large-scale features on Pluto’s surface. When various large, dark and bright regions appear near limbs, they give Pluto a distinct, but false, non-spherical appearance. Pluto is known to be almost perfectly spherical from previous data. These images are displayed at four times the native LORRI image size, and have been processed using a method called deconvolution, which sharpens the original images to enhance features on Pluto.
Credits: NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Southwest Research Institute

New Horizons scientists use a technique called deconvolution to sharpen the raw, unprocessed pictures that the spacecraft beams back to Earth; the contrast in these latest images has also been stretched to bring out additional details. Deconvolution can occasionally produce artifacts, so the team will be carefully reviewing newer images taken from closer range to determine whether some of the tantalizing details seen in these images persist. Pluto’s non-spherical appearance in these images is not real; it results from a combination of the image-processing technique and Pluto’s large variations in surface brightness.
“The unambiguous detection of bright and dark terrain units on both Pluto and Charon indicates a wide range of diverse landscapes across the pair,” said science team co-investigator and imaging lead Jeff Moore, of NASA Ames Research Center, Mountain View, California. “For example, the bright fringe we see on Pluto may represent frost deposited from an evaporating polar cap, which is now in summer sun.”

These recent images show the discovery of significant surface details on Pluto’s largest moon, Charon. They were taken by the New Horizons Long Range Reconnaissance Imager (LORRI) on June 18, 2015. The image on the left is the original image, displayed at four times the native LORRI image size. After applying a technique that sharpens an image called deconvolution, details become visible on Charon, including a distinct dark pole. Deconvolution can occasionally introduce “false” details, so the finest details in these pictures will need to be confirmed by images taken from closer range in the next few weeks.
Credits: NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Southwest Research Institute

New Horizons is approximately 2.9 billion miles (4.7 billion kilometers) from Earth and just 16 million miles (25 million kilometers) from Pluto. The spacecraft and payload are in good health and operating normally.
Source: NASA

Saturn's moon Titan's atmosphere even more Earth-like than previously thought

Date:

June 18, 2015

Source:

University College London

Summary:

Scientists have observed how a widespread polar wind is driving gas from the atmosphere of Saturn's moon Titan. The team analyzed data gathered over seven years by the international Cassini probe, and found that the interactions between Titan's atmosphere, and the solar magnetic field and radiation, create a wind of hydrocarbons and nitriles being blown away from its polar regions into space. This is very similar to the wind observed coming from the Earth's polar regions.

FULL STORY

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Titan shows us its active polar atmosphere with the north polar hood and south polar vortex both on display in this image captured by the Cassini spacecraft. The north polar hood is visible as the dark cap on the moon's cloud layer at the top of Titan in this image and the south polar vortex is visible as the bright feature at the bottom.

Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Space Science Institute

Scientists at UCL have observed how a widespread polar wind is driving gas from the atmosphere of Saturn's moon Titan. The team analysed data gathered over seven years by the international Cassini probe, and found that the interactions between Titan's atmosphere, and the solar magnetic field and radiation, create a wind of hydrocarbons and nitriles being blown away from its polar regions into space. This is very similar to the wind observed coming from Earth's polar regions.

Titan is a remarkable object in the Solar System. Like Earth and Venus, and unlike any other moon, it has a rocky surface and a thick atmosphere. It is the only object in the Solar System aside from Earth to have rivers, rainfall and seas. It is bigger than the planet Mercury.
Thanks to these unique features, Titan has been studied more than any moon other than Earth's, including numerous fly-bys by the Cassini probe, as well as the Huygens lander which touched down in 2004. On board Cassini is an instrument partly designed at UCL, the Cassini Plasma Spectrometer (CAPS), which was used in this study.
"Titan's atmosphere is made up mainly of nitrogen and methane, with 50% higher pressure at its surface than on Earth," said Andrew Coates (UCL Mullard Space Science Laboratory), who led the study. "Data from CAPS proved a few years ago that the top of Titan's atmosphere is losing about seven tonnes of hydrocarbons and nitriles every day, but didn't explain why this was happening. Our new study provides evidence for why this is happening."
Hydrocarbons are a category of molecules that includes methane, as well as other familiar substances including petrol, natural gas and bitumen. Nitriles are molecules with nitrogen and carbon tightly bound together.
The new research, published today in the journal Geophysical Research Letters, explains that this atmospheric loss is driven by a polar wind powered by an interaction between sunlight, the solar magnetic field and the molecules present in the upper atmosphere.
"Although Titan is ten times further from the Sun than Earth is, its upper atmosphere is still bathed in light," says Coates. "When the light hits molecules in Titan's ionosphere, it ejects negatively charged electrons out of the hydrocarbon and nitrile molecules, leaving a positively charged particle behind. These electrons, known as photoelectrons, have a very specific energy of 24.1 electronvolts, which means they can be traced by the CAPS instrument, and easily distinguished from other electrons, as they propagate through the surrounding magnetic field."
Unike Earth, Titan has no magnetic field of its own, but is surrounded by Saturn's rapidly rotating magnetic field, which drapes forming a comet-like tail around the moon. In 23 fly-bys which passed through Titan's ionosphere or its magnetic tail, CAPS detected measurable quantities of these photoelectrons up to 6.8 Titan radii away from the moon, because they can easily travel along the magnetic field lines.
The team found that these negatively-charged photoelectrons, spread throughout Titan's ionosphere and the tail, set up an electrical field. The electrical field, in turn, is strong enough to pull the positively charged hydrocarbon and nitrile particles from the atmosphere throughout the sunlit portion of the atmosphere, setting up the widespread 'polar wind' that scientists have observed there.
This phenomenon has only been observed on Earth before, in the polar regions where Earth's magnetic field is open. As Titan lacks its own magnetic field the same thing can occur over wider regions, not just near the poles. A similarly widespread 'polar wind' is strongly suspected to exist both on Mars and Venus -- the two planets in the Solar System which are most Earth-like. It gives further evidence of how Titan, despite its location in orbit around a gas giant in the outer Solar System, is one of the most Earth-like objects ever studied.

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Methane in Mars Meteorites Suggests Possibility of Life

by Charles Q. Choi, Space.com Contributor   |   June 16, 2015 11:01am ET

Meteorites from Mars found on Earth have traces of methane, adding weight to the idea that life could live off methane on the Red Planet, scientists say. But the methane detection alone is not proof that life exists on Mars now or in the past, they add. Credit: Image by Michael Helfenbein View full size image

Methane, a potential sign of primitive life, has been found in meteorites from Mars, adding weight to the idea that life could live off methane on the Red Planet, researchers say.
This discovery is not evidence that life exists, or has ever existed, on Mars, the researchers cautioned. Still, methane "is an ingredient that could potentially support microbial activity in the Red Planet," study lead author Nigel Blamey, a geochemist at Brock University in St. Catharines, Ontario, Canada, told Space.com.
Methane is the simplest organic molecule. This colorless, odorless, flammable gas was first discovered in the Martian atmosphere by the European Space Agency's Mars Express spacecraft in 2003, and NASA's Curiosity rover discovered a fleeting spike of methane at its landing site last year. [The Search for Life on Mars: A Photo Timeline]

Much of the methane in Earth's atmosphere is produced by life, such as cattle digesting food. However, there are ways to produce methane without life, such as volcanic activity.
To shed light on the nature of the methane on Mars, Blamey and his colleagues analyzed rocks blasted off Mars by cosmic impacts that subsequently crash-landed on Earth as meteorites. About 220 pounds (100 kilograms) of Martian meteorites have been found on Earth.
The scientists focused on six meteorites from Mars that serve as examples of volcanic rocks there, collecting samples about one-quarter of a gram from each — a little bigger than a 1-carat diamond. All the samples were taken from the interiors of the meteorites, to avoid terrestrial contamination.
The researchers found that all six released methane and other gases when crushed, probably from small pockets inside.
"The biggest surprise was how large the methane signals were," Blamey said.
Chemical reactions between volcanic rocks on Mars and the Martian environment could release methane. Although the dry thin air of Mars makes its surface hostile to life, the researchers suggest the Red Planet is probably more habitable under its surface. They noted that if methane is available underground on Mars, microbes could live off it, just as some bacteria do in extreme environments on Earth.
"We have not found life, but we have found methane that could potentially support microbes in the subsurface," Blamey said.

Returned Space Station Crew Members Helped Advance NASA’s Journey to Mars, Benefits to Humanity

Posted Yesterday

Though they had conducted hundreds of science and technology experiments aboard the International Space Station during their 199 days in orbit, the three crew members returning to Earth Thursday had at least one important experiment waiting for them on the ground.

Expedition 43 commander Terry Virts of NASA, left, cosmonaut Anton Shkaplerov of the Russian Federal Space Agency (Roscosmos), center, and Italian astronaut Samantha Cristoforetti from European Space Agency (ESA) sit in chairs outside the Soyuz TMA-15M spacecraft just minutes after they landed in a remote area near the town of Zhezkazgan, Kazakhstan on Thursday, June 11, 2015. Virtz, Shkaplerov, and Cristoforetti are returning after more than six months onboard the International Space Station where they served as members of the Expedition 42 and 43 crews. Photo Credit: (NASA/Bill Ingalls)

Inside a medical tent, researchers put the explorers through a battery of tests, measuring their balance and ability to navigate tasks, like stepping over obstacles. Astronauts landing on Mars after a similarly long duration in space won’t have the benefit of a medical team waiting for them. Understanding how the human body re-adapts to gravity is key to planning for future human missions deeper into the solar system.
Experiments like the Field Test are just one of the ways space station crews are helping advance NASA’s journey to Mars while making discoveries that can benefit all of humanity. New science and technology investigations were daily activities for NASA astronaut Terry Virts, Samantha Cristoforetti of ESA (European Space Agency), and Anton Shkaplerov of the Russian Federal Space Agency (Roscosmos) aboard the orbiting laboratory during Expeditions 42 and 43.
The hundreds of experiments taking place aboard the space station represent a wide range of scientific disciplines, including biology and biotechnology, Earth and space science, human research, physical sciences, technology, and educational activities.

A final image of Earth taken by Expedition 43 commander Terry Virts of NASA aboard the International Space Station hours before returning home on Thursday, June 11, 2015. Credits: NASA

Research highlights from the returned crew members’ time aboard the space station include the first 3-d printed tool in space. The capability could be key in helping astronauts become more independent on missions far from Earth.
The human body experiences numerous changes in microgravity. Mitigating challenges like loss of bone and muscle mass are some of the reasons astronauts exercise two hours a day while in space. A recent experiment conducted by the space station crew is looking to solve the puzzle of why more than half of astronauts experience changes in their vision. The Fluid Shifts experiment tests one theory by using special pants to help pull fluids from an astronaut’s upper body to their legs – similar to the effect gravity has on our bodies here on Earth.
A similar experiment called Drain Brain, conducted by the crew, uses a neck collar to relieve pressure from inside an astronaut’s head, which could help relieve headaches caused by lack of gravity.
Other experiments conducted by the crew, like Coarsening in Solid Mixtures-4, have a direct benefit to humanity – in this case, helping improve the design of manufactured materials.
Those on social media who followed posts by Virts (@AstroTerry) and Cristoforetti (@AstroSamantha) may have seen online conversation “buzzing” about the new espresso machine that arrived on the space station in April. While providing a creature comfort to the crew on orbit, the Capillary Beverage study is testing real science, helping researchers better understand how fluids move in space.
Many of their social media posts helped capture the imagination of people around the world with spectacular views of Earth, including this time lapse of a blizzard over the east coast of the United States in January. The space station’s vantage point 250 miles above the planet provides researchers a unique opportunity to study our changing Earth right now.
In March, Virts, Cristoforetti and Shkaplerov welcomed three new crew members to the orbital outpost: NASA astronaut Scott Kelly and Russian cosmonauts Mikhail Kornienko and Gennady Padalka of Roscosmos. Kelly and Kornienko will spend one year aboard the space station to further test the effects of long-duration microgravity on the human body.
The returned crew members also greeted four cargo spacecraft, including two SpaceX Dragon vehicles which launched multiple experiments to orbit and returned science samples to Earth. NASA’s work with the U.S. commercial space industry is opening low-Earth orbit to new opportunities for economic growth and private research like never before. NASA plans to use a new generation of spacecraft, privately developed and operated by Boeing and SpaceX, to launch astronauts to the space station once again from the United States. During his space station stay, Virts conducted three spacewalks to help reconfigure the space station in preparation for these U.S. commercial crew flights (Watch GoPro video of the most recent spacewalk).
Research on the returned crew members will continue over the next few weeks, as they acclimate to life back in gravity, providing key data for future crews training for life aboard the space station, off the Earth for the Earth.
Source: NASA

Longest Woman Spaceflyer to Return as Russia Reshuffles Station Launches After Rocket Failure

by Ken Kremer on June 9, 2015

Flight Engineer Samantha Cristoforetti of the European Space Agency, record setting female spaceflyer, in Star Trek uniform as Dragon arrives at the International Space Station on April 17, 2015. Credit: NASA

The longest space mission in history by a female astronaut is now set to conclude on Thursday, following Russia’s confirmation of a significant reshuffling of the crew and cargo flight manifest to the International Space Station (ISS) for the remainder of 2015 – all in the wake of the unexpected Russian launch failure of a station bound Progress resupply ship in late April with far reaching consequences.
The record setting flight of approximately 200 days by Italian spaceflyer Samantha Cristoforetti, along with her two Expedition 43 crewmates, will come to an end on Thursday, June 11, when the trio are set to undock and depart the station aboard their Russian Soyuz crew capsule and return back to Earth a few hours later.
Roscosmos, the Russian Federal Space Agency, officially announced today, June 9, a revamped schedule changing the launch dates of several upcoming crewed launches this year to the Earth orbiting outpost.
Launch dates for the next three Progress cargo flights have also been adjusted.
The next three person ISS crew will now launch between July 23 to 25 on the Soyuz TMA-17M capsule from the Baikonur cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. The exact timing of the Expedition 44 launch using a Russian Soyuz-FG booster is yet to be determined.

The International Space Station, photographed by the crew of STS-132 as they disembarked. Credit: NASA

Soon after the Progress mishap, the Expedition 43 mission was extended by about a month so as to minimize the period when the ISS is staffed by only a reduced crew of three people aboard – since the blastoff of the next crew was simultaneously delayed by Roscosmos by about two months from May to late July.
Indeed Cristoforetti’s endurance record only came about as a result of the very late mission extension ordered by Roscosmos, so the agency could investigate the root cause of the recent launch failure of the Russian Progress 59 freighter that spun wildly out of control soon after blastoff on April 28 on a Soyuz-2.1A carrier rocket.
Roscosmos determined that the Progress failure was caused by an “abnormal separation of the 3rd stage and the cargo vehicle” along with “associated frequency dynamic characteristics.”
The Expedition 43 crew comprising of Cristoforetti, NASA astronaut and current station commander Terry Virts, and Russian cosmonaut Anton Shkaplerov had been scheduled to head back home around May 13. The trio have been working and living aboard the complex since November 2014.
The 38-year old Cristoforetti actually broke the current space flight endurance record for a female astronaut during this past weekend on Saturday, June 6, when she eclipsed the record of 194 days, 18 hours and 2 minutes established by NASA astronaut Sunita Williams on a prior station flight back in 2007.
Cristoforetti, of the European Space Agency (ESA), also counts as Italy’s first female astronaut.
The Progress 59 cargo vessel, also known as Progress M-27M, along with all its 2.5 tons of contents were destroyed during an uncontrolled plummet back to Earth on May 8.

NASA astronaut Terry Virts (left) Commander of Expedition 43 on the International Space Station along with crewmates Russian cosmonaut Anton Shkaplerov (center) and ESA (European Space Agency) astronaut Samantha Cristoforetti on May 6, 2015 perform a checkout of their Russian Soyuz spacesuits in preparation for the journey back to Earth – now set for June 11, 2015. Credits: NASA

Roscosmos announced that they are accelerating the planned launch of the next planned Progress 60 (or M-28M) from August 6 up to July 3 on a Soyuz-U carrier rocket, which is different from the problematic Soyuz-2.1A rocket.
Following the Soyuz crew launch in late July, the next Soyuz will blastoff on Sept. 1 for a 10 day taxi mission on the TMA-18M capsule with cosmonaut Sergei Volkov and ESA astronaut Andreas Mogensen. After British opera singer Sarah Brightman withdrew from participating as a space tourist, a new third crew member will be named soon by Roscosmos.
The final crewed Soyuz of 2015 with the TMA-19M capsule has been postponed from Nov. 20 to Dec. 15.
Also in the mix is the launch of NASA’s next contracted unmanned Dragon cargo mission by commercial provider SpaceX on the CRS-7 flight. Dragon CRS-7 is now slated for liftoff on June 26. Watch for my onsite reports from KSC.
The most recent unmanned Dragon cargo CRS-6 mission concluded with a Pacific Ocean splashdown on May 21.
The Dragon will be carrying critical US equipment, known as the IDA, enabling docking by the SpaceX Crew Dragon and Boeing CST-100 astronaut transporters – due for first crewed launches in 2017.

ESA (European Space Agency) astronaut Samantha Cristoforetti enjoys a drink from the new ISSpresso machine. The espresso device allows crews to make tea, coffee, broth, or other hot beverages they might enjoy. Credit: NASA

NASA astronaut Scott Kelly and Russian cosmonauts Mikhail Kornienko and Gennady Padalka will remain aboard the station after the Virts crew returns to begin Expedition 44.

How Can We Live on Mars?

Posted Yesterday

Why live on Earth when you can live on Mars? Well, strictly speaking, you can’t. Mars is a completely hostile environment to human life, combining extreme cold with an unbreathable atmosphere and intense radiation. And yet, if we want to expand into the Solar System, we’ll need to learn to live on this planet. Here’s how we’ll do it.

The Dragon Crew capsule is more than a modernized Apollo capsule. It will land softly and at least on Earth will be reusable while Musk and SpaceX dream of landing Falcon Crew on Mars. Credits: SpaceX

Reasons To Go:
Let’s face it, humanity wants (and needs) to go Mars, and for several reasons.  For one, there’s the spirit of exploration, setting foot on a new world and exploring the next great frontier – like the Apollo astronauts did in the late 60s and early 70s.
We also need to go there if we want to create a backup location for humanity, in the event that life on Earth becomes untenable due to things like Climate Change. We could also go there to search for additional resources like water, precious metals, or additional croplands in case we can no longer feed ourselves.
In that respect, Mars is the next, natural destination. There’s also a little local support, as Mars does provide us some raw materials. The regolith, the material which covers the surface, could be used to make concrete, and there are cave systems which could be converted into underground habitats to protect citizens from the radiation.
Elon Musk has stated that the goal of SpaceX is to help humans get to Mars, and they’re designing rockets, landers and equipment to support that. Musk would like to build a Mars colony with 80,000 people. Which is a good choice, as its probably the second most habitable place in our Solar System. Real estate should be pretty cheap, but the commute is a bit much.
And then there’s the great vistas to think about. Mars is beautiful, after a fashion. It looks like a nice desert planet with winds, clouds, and ancient river beds. But maybe, just maybe, the best reason to go there is because it’s hard! There’s something to be said about setting a goal and achieving it, especially when it requires so much hard work and sacrifice.
Reasons NOT To Go:
Yeah, Mars is pretty great… if you’re not made of meat and don’t need to breathe oxygen. Otherwise, it’s incredibly hostile. It’s not much more habitable than the cold vacuum of space. First, there’s no air on Mars. So if you were dropped on the surface, the view would be spectacular. Then you’d quickly pass out, and expire a couple minutes later from a lack of oxygen.
There’s also virtually no air pressure, and temperatures are incredibly cold. And of course, there’s the constant radiation streaming from space. You also might want to note that the soil is toxic, so using it for planting would first require that it be put through a decontamination process.

Afternoon on Mars (MSL Mastcam mosaic)(NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS. Edit by Jason Major)

Assuming we can deal with those issues, there’s also the major problem of having limited access to spare parts and medical supplies. You can’t just go down to the store when you’re on Mars if your kidney gives out or if your sonic screwdriver breaks.
There will need to be a constant stream of supplies coming from Earth until the Martian economy is built up enough to support itself. And shipping from Earth will be very expensive, which will mean long period between supply drops.
One more big unknown is what the low gravity will do to the human body over months and years. At 40% of Earth normal, the long-term effects are not something we currently have any information on. Will it shorten our lifespan or lengthen it? We just don’t know.
There’s a long list of these types of problems. If we intend to live on Mars, and stay there permanently, we’ll be leaning pretty hard on our technology to keep us alive, never mind making us comfortable!
Solutions:
In order to survive the lack of air pressure and the cold, humans will need pressurized and heated habitats. Martians, the terrestrial kind, will also need a spacesuit whenever they go outside. Every hour they spend outside will add to their radiation exposure, not to mention all the complications that exposure to radiation brings.

Artist’s concept of a habitat for a Mars colony. Credit: NASA

For the long term, we’ll need to figure out how to extract water from underground supplies, and use that to generate breathable air and rocket fuel. And once we’ve reduced the risk of suffocation or dying of dehydration, we’ll need to consider food sources, as we’ll be outside the delivery area of everyone except Planet Express. Care packages could be shipped up from Earth, but that’s going to come with a hefty price tag.
We’ll need to produce our own food too, since we can’t possible hope to ship it all in on a regular basis. Interestingly, although toxic, Martian soil can be used to grow plants once you supplement it and remove some of the harsher chemicals. NASA’s extensive experience in hydroponics will help.
To thrive on Mars, the brave adventurers may want to change themselves, or possibly their offspring. This could lead to genetic engineering to help future generations adapt to the low gravity, higher radiation and lower air pressure. And why stop at humans? Human colonists could also adapt their plants and animals to live there as well.
Finally, to take things to the next level, humanity could make a few planetary renovations. Basically, we could change Mars itself through the process of terraforming. To do this, we’ll need to release megatons of greenhouse gasses to warm the planet, unleashing the frozen water reserves. Perhaps we’ll crash a few hundred comets into the planet to deliver water and other chemicals too.

An artist’s conception of future Mars astronauts. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

This might take thousands, or even millions of years. And the price tag will be, for lack of a better word, astronomical! Still, the technology required to do all this is within our current means, and the process could restore Mars to a place where we could live on it even without a spacesuit.
And even though we may not have all the particulars worked out just yet, there is something to be said about a challenge. As history has shown, there is little better than a seemingly insurmountable challenge to bring out the best in all of us, and to make what seems like an impossible dream a reality.
To quote the late, great John F. Kennedy, who addressed the people of the United States back when they was embarking on a similarly difficult mission:

We choose to go to the Moon! … We choose to go to the Moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard; because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one we intend to win

What do you think? Would you be part of the Mars terraforming expedition? Tell us in the comments below.
Source: Universe Today, written by Matt Williams

  Why not view in comfort with this terrific adjustable chair, available right now at astronomyandtelescopesforyou.com                                                                                                                                                                                                          

      

Company Seven StarBound Astronomy Viewing Chair, Metal, Black

by Starbound

13 customer reviews

| 3 answered questions

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Price:

$149.95 & FREE Shipping

Only 11 left in stock.

Ships from and sold by Adorama Camera.

Estimated Delivery Date: Friday, June 5 when you choose Two-Day Shipping at checkout.

• "An absolutely indispensable piece of (astronomy) equipment" - AstroMart
• Durable construction and finish
• Padded seat, filled with a durable material that will not rot or decay over time in heat or cold
• Adjustable height - with a reach broad enough to put an observer at a comfortable position for a variety of telescope eyepiece heights
• Ability to fold into a compact, ideally flat profile

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