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[Rentahamster]

This is an interesting idea that I haven't seen discussed much before. One of the hurdles of how we can terraform Mars would be solving the problem of how to restart Mars' magnetosphere.

http://space.stackexchange.com/ques...e-possible-to-kick-start-marss-magnetic-field

As we know, the magnetic field of Earth deflects a lot of bad solar particles that would otherwise be quite harmful to our health. Mars' lack of a proper magnetic field is one of the causes of atmospheric stripping.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earth's_magnetic_field#Magnetosphere

In this presentation at the Planetary Science Vision 2050 Workshop, The director of NASA's Planetary Science Division gives a presentation about how putting a big magnet in orbit around Mars could deflect enough solar particles to provide protection for Mars' atmosphere and possibly cause it to thicken.

https://livestream.com/viewnow/vision2050/videos/150701155

Presentation at 1:36:00

https://phys.org/news/2017-03-nasa-magnetic-shield-mars-atmosphere.html

The current scientific consensus is that, like Earth, Mars once had a magnetic field that protected its atmosphere. Roughly 4.2 billion years ago, this planet's magnetic field suddenly disappeared, which caused Mars' atmosphere to slowly be lost to space. Over the course of the next 500 million years, Mars went from being a warmer, wetter environment to the cold, uninhabitable place we know today.

Without this atmosphere, Mars will continue to be a cold, dry place where life cannot flourish. In addition to that, future crewed mission – which NASA hopes to mount by the 2030s – will also have to deal with some severe hazards. Foremost among these will be exposure to radiation and the danger of asphyxiation, which will pose an even greater danger to colonists (should any attempts at colonization be made).

In answer to this challenge, Dr. Jim Green – the Director of NASA's Planetary Science Division – and a panel of researchers presented an ambitious idea. In essence, they suggested that by positioning a magnetic dipole shield at the Mars L1 Lagrange Point, an artificial magnetosphere could be formed that would encompass the entire planet, thus shielding it from solar wind and radiation.

What they found was that a dipole field positioned at Mars L1 Lagrange Point would be able to counteract solar wind, such that Mars' atmosphere would achieve a new balance. At present, atmospheric loss on Mars is balanced to some degree by volcanic outpassing from Mars interior and crust. This contributes to a surface atmosphere that is about 6 mbar in air pressure (less than 1% that at sea level on Earth).

As a result, Mars atmosphere would naturally thicken over time, which lead to many new possibilities for human exploration and colonization. According to Green and his colleagues, these would include an average increase of about 4 °C (~7 °F), which would be enough to melt the carbon dioxide ice in the northern polar ice cap. This would trigger a greenhouse effect, warming the atmosphere further and causing the water ice in the polar caps to melt.

By their calculations, Green and his colleagues estimated that this could lead to 1/7th of Mars' oceans – the ones that covered it billions of years ago – to be restored. If this is beginning to sound a bit like a lecture on how to terraform Mars, it is probably because these same ideas have been raised by people who advocating that very thing. But in the meantime, these changes would facilitate human exploration between now and mid-century.

What do you think? Plausible? Unfeasible?

UPDATE: pdf supplemental reading: http://www.hou.usra.edu/meetings/V2050/pdf/8250.pdf

 

[Succinct Verbosity]

Too bad trump and his ilk are getting ready to cut funding for projects like this.

As for plausibility, I have no idea... But as with all things Nasa, it is fascinating.

 

[brian577]

Too bad trump and his ilk are getting ready to cut funding for projects like this.

As for plausibility, I have no idea... But as with all things Nasa, it is fascinating.

Republicans love space programs, makes America look great or whatever. Furthermore, is it really necessary to find an excuse to bring up that asshole? Can we get one topic about a hopeful subject that doesn't get smothered by the very mention of his name?

 

[Mivey]

Too bad trump and his ilk are getting ready to cut funding for projects like this.

As for plausibility, I have no idea... But as with all things Nasa, it is fascinating.

Tell him it's the Mars Magnetic Wall, and the Martians will pay for it.

 

[Caddywompus]

Just let Elon nuke the damn thing and see what happens.

 

[Chaos2Frozen]

Republicans love space programs, makes America look great or whatever. Furthermore, is it really necessary to find an excuse to bring up that asshole? Can we get one topic about a hopeful subject that doesn't get smothered by the very mention of his name?

Kinda hard when he's the one cutting their funding

 

[Turin Turambar]

No mention of how big would have to be the magnetic device...

Because to cover the entire planet, I imagine it would have to be pretty fucking big.

 

[PdotMichael]

That doesn't appear like something that could happen in a reasonable time frame, even ignoring that the idea of colonization is pointless.

Too bad trump and his ilk are getting ready to cut funding for projects like this.

As for plausibility, I have no idea... But as with all things Nasa, it is fascinating.

Can you please go away with Trump.

It's obvious that you have nothing to say here.

 

[Flai]

Kinda hard when he's the one cutting their funding

Based on what? Baseless rumours? While it's possible that the climate research and other Earth observation will be cut/moved to NOAA, it wouldn't really affect deep space programs like what this would be.

 

[A Fish Aficionado]

Just let Elon nuke the damn thing and see what happens.

That 50s "lets try this and see what happens!"
The 50th anniversary of Starfish Prime: the nuke that shook the world

 

[Joyful]

its a cool idea at least
itd be nice to have a backup earth

 

[CadetMahoney]

mars is kinda small compared to earth. 'bout half.

 

[ultratruman]

From what I'm reading, an increase of just 4C would be enough to melt some of the polar ice caps and create a runaway effect on the planet's atmosphere. This is really interesting and I'm looking forward to reading the projected timeline. The reference to 'humans by 2040' is making me hopeful that they're talking about potentially seeing significant results in this century.

 

[danthefan]

mars is kinda small compared to earth. 'bout half.

It's radius is about half - but this means its surface area is about a quarter and it's volume is less than that again, and it's mass is even less again, about 1/10th of Earth.


Is it remotely feasible that we could launch this magnet? How big/massive would it have to be? Is it within our capabilities to get it off the ground?

 

[JonnyDBrit]

That doesn't appear like something that could happen in a reasonable time frame, even ignoring that the idea of colonization is pointless.

It's interesting because they seem to expect actually rather quick results, since it would supposedly provide something of an immediate benefit to attempts to colonise or otherwise perform experiments on the planet.

That said, even if something like this worked, I'd be wary of the continued survival of an entire planet hinging upon something that could potentially be damaged, targeted, wind up out of sync, or potentially just stop working. Because this doesn't fix that Mars inherently lacks a magnetic field worth a damn of its own, and to fix that we'd somehow have to jumpstart its core so it acts like a proper planetary dynamo again. Otherwise, any and all attempts to colonise Mars are at the mercy of its own sword of damocles.

 

[kami_sama]

It's radius is about half - but this means its surface area is about a quarter and it's volume is less than that again, and it's mass is even less again, about 1/10th of Earth.


Is it remotely feasible that we could launch this magnet? How big/massive would it have to be? Is it within our capabilities to get it off the ground?

I read that the technology is somewhat within our means, at least to make it within earth, making it in Mars instead would be another completely different thing.

 

[ultratruman]

That said, even if something like this worked, I'd be wary of the continued survival of an entire planet hinging upon something that could potentially be damaged, targeted, wind up out of sync, or potentially just stop working. Because this doesn't fix that Mars inherently lacks a magnetic field worth a damn of its own, and to fix that we'd somehow have to jumpstart its core so it acts like a proper planetary dynamo again. Otherwise, any and all attempts to colonise Mars are at the mercy of its own sword of damocles.

Pretty cool concept for a sci-fi, though.

 

[Boney]

Say wuuuut

 

[JonnyDBrit]

Pretty cool concept for a sci-fi, though.

Oh yeah, I'm totally tossing that in among the notes I have scattered about. It's a pretty obvious setup to work with.

 

[nekkid]

From what I'm reading, an increase of just 4C would be enough to melt some of the polar ice caps and create a runaway effect on the planet's atmosphere. This is really interesting and I'm looking forward to reading the projected timeline. The reference to 'humans by 2040' is making me hopeful that they're talking about potentially seeing significant results in this century.

Is it our right to affect another entire planet like this, though?

We'd need to be sure there is nothing left to learn about Mars before did this.

 

[MarionCB]

The big problem with constructing large things in space is getting it out of our gravity well. However, imagine if we could get the material for this magnet from the asteroid belt? Once you're in space, it's not that hard to move things about with small engines. Robotics is just getting better; have semi-autonomous (because of the time delay) robots instructed from Earth mine, process and build the blocks for it. It's not a complex device; it's essentially just a giant magnet. Construct the whole magnet in space then tow it to Mars' L1 point and bam.

As a bonus we can keep mining the belt for stuff and eventually Cowboy Bebop happens.

 

[Kayhan]

Fucking magnets, how do they work?

 

[formasymphonic]

Lets all be insanely naive for a moment and imagine the potential we would have if governments swapped their budgets for militaries and for space development. think about what we could have achieved in the last 100 years and in the next 100...

...back to reality now:
- How do we build something of that size and get it to Mars?
- Do we set up a forward base on the Moon and then build from resources there instead?
- Harvest/transport resources form asteroids? finally work on an orbital elevator-type solution?
- Do we build it on Mars instead?
- How do we even power it? A combination of solar + nuclear power, I'm guessing?

while its not an impossibility — we'd definitely need to solve a lot of power, transportation, resource gathering and manufacturing issues to make this a reality. never mind the fact that we would need multiple for redundancy to prevent this:

That said, even if something like this worked, I'd be wary of the continued survival of an entire planet hinging upon something that could potentially be damaged, targeted, wind up out of sync, or potentially just stop working. Because this doesn't fix that Mars inherently lacks a magnetic field worth a damn of its own, and to fix that we'd somehow have to jumpstart its core so it acts like a proper planetary dynamo again. Otherwise, any and all attempts to colonise Mars are at the mercy of its own sword of damocles.

Also, part of me has always hoped we would look more seriously at ways to terraform Venus instead of Mars (but both, of course are insanely difficult challenges in their own ways.)

 

[ultratruman]

Is it our right to affect another entire planet like this, though?

We'd need to be sure there is nothing left to learn about Mars before did this.

It's a real debate. 'Planetary Protection' people would probably agree with you, they perceive Mars to be a giant laboratory that needs to be kept pristine for real science to be done. Most academics probably fall into this camp, and it's NASA's official policy.

The other side, The Mars Society/Musk etc, think you need to put humans on Mars to perform real science. In addition, they argue for all the other benefits that it would bring humankind: living space, enriching resources, millions of job opportunities and an expanded consciousness akin to that of the European discovery of the Americas.

To me, it really boils down to how much of a radical humanist you are.

 

[CoolOff]

mars is kinda small compared to earth. 'bout half.

No oceans though.

 

[mclem]

So, basically a giant space condom?

 

[BassForever]

We should send moss and cockroaches to terraform Mars what could possibly go wrong?

 

[Pop-O-Matic]

We should send moss and cockroaches to terraform Mars what could possibly go wrong?

Some Japanese dude makes a comic about murdering a bunch of racist caricatures?

 

[gaugebozo]

What's the total momentum imparted by all the solar wind that would hit that dipole that would have to be negated, and what's the power needed to produce a dipole of that size?

 

[User Name Here]

Maybe we can take a bunch of magnetic material, shape it into a nice gray hollow ball, and just chuck it into orbit around the planet?

 

[Vicetrailia]

I thought earth was just the right distance from the sun, and since Mars is too far so it will remain impossible to live there for a ton of reasons.

 

[chromatic9]

You could launch multiple magnets over time that dock together. Would it have to be electromagnetic to boost the power, would terrible if the power goes and the atmosphere starts to disappear.

 

[Kai Dracon]

I'm kind of assuming a fully colonized Mars would send someone to perform maintenance on such a device from time to time instead of waiting for it to fail.

My biggest question is power; is it feasible to generation a sufficient magnetic field with available nuclear power technology? I assume such a device isn't going to be a small satellite but more of a station devoted to throwing the shield up between the Sun and Mars. I could see it having a battery of nuclear reactors of the kind used on ships and submarines, with a rotating crew in case anything goes wrong.

 

[ferr]

What impact would adding a planet size magnetic shield out there have on Earth?

 

[Winterblink]

Interesting idea. I'm assuming some sort of massive electromagnet setup would be in order, solar powered or somesuch.

I wonder if the engineering of that ends up being a mess if it's possible to relocate a highly magnetic body from elsewhere (large asteroid, for example) and place it in the correct position.

 

[Abstruse Moose]

So, basically a giant space condom?

You don't want space AIDS, do you?

 

[UFO]

That sounds awesome. Not something that could happen anytime soon. But a few hundred years maybe.

 

[Tal Shiar Agent]

I thought earth was just the right distance from the sun, and since Mars is too far so it will remain impossible to live there for a ton of reasons.

Mars is within the habitable zone. With a proper atmosphere it would be warm enough, at least in a belt around the equator, to support liquid water year round.

You could launch multiple magnets over time that dock together. Would it have to be electromagnetic to boost the power, would terrible if the power goes and the atmosphere starts to disappear.

Even if it does fail once the atmosphere is thick enough it wouldn't be an immediately dangerous situation because it would still take hundreds of years to strip the atmosphere away again.

 

[turmoil]

An interesting idea.

Even with a magnetic field and an atmosphere people should live inside dome-like structures just in case at least for some decades until the reliability of the magnet is well established.

 

[etp_1]

Wait...i thought Arnold is restarting Mars.

 

[PdotMichael]

An interesting idea.

Even with a magnetic field and an atmosphere people should live inside dome-like structures just in case at least for some decades until the reliability of the magnet is well established.

There is still not enough gravity on mars and lack of O2.

Also we have no idea how to control the process to create a tropopause low enough so it can rain (Venus has that problem).

 

[Iksenpets]

I guess the real question is how big would the magnet have to be. Is it even feasible to build a magnet of that size, even if we assumed the necessary advances in space tech to get it into space and to tow it to the Lagrange point?

 

[RecRoulette]

Get on it Elon, I doubt the government will get the resources to solve this.

 

[Zapages]

all this cool stuff makes me think that I should have been born 100 or 200 years from now where we could could actually reach there... I guess for most of us it will be dream to go and reach there unless we figure out to cyro-freeze our bodies and successfully revive us afterwards. *sigh*

 

[N.Domixis]

mars is kinda small compared to earth. 'bout half.

Small but the same amount of land.
Venus should be easier and faster to transform. Just make something that gets rid of the thick atmosohere

 

[Micael]

Pretty cool setting for some entertainment stuff.

all this cool stuff makes me think that I should have been born 100 or 200 years from now where we could could actually reach there... I guess for most of us it will be dream to go and reach there unless we figure out to cyro-freeze our bodies and successfully revive us afterwards. *sigh*

Look on the bright side if we manage to fuck up our planet, which we are doing a stellar job at, you won't really want to be born 100 to 200 years from now, so you might actually be living some of the better years humanity has to offer.

 

[Faddy]

That isn't how magnetic fields work NASA. Those parallel lines going off to infinity SMDH.

Div B = 0

 

[DarthWoo]

When we have the tech to build and move a giant magnet into Mars orbit, could we not also locate and drag a primarily ice comet and slam it into the planet to provide some additional water so that the oceans could be a little more than 1/7th full?

 

[Faddy]

Interesting idea. I'm assuming some sort of massive electromagnet setup would be in order, solar powered or somesuch.

I wonder if the engineering of that ends up being a mess if it's possible to relocate a highly magnetic body from elsewhere (large asteroid, for example) and place it in the correct position.

It would have to be permanent magnets. There is no way to power and cool such a large active device in space.

 

[Rentahamster]

So, basically a giant space condom?

Notice the majestic girth on the "magnetosheath".