Tuesday, November 5, 2024
12.5 C
New York

Could a Magnetic Shield Be the Answer to Creating a Suitable Atmosphere on Mars?

Well, NASA certainly seems to thinks so. Jim Green, Planetary Science Division Director at NASA, says that one way that may help Mars become habitable is by launching a magnetic shield into the sky. Currently, at NASA’s headquarters in Washington D.C., The Planetary Science Vision 2050 Workshop is underway and involves all those projects that will potentially be finalized or at least be underway by 2050.


Green recently talked about one particular idea that’s part of the workshop in a discussion entitled, “A Future Mars Environment for Science and Exploration.” During it he talked about how launching a magnetic shield between the sun and Mars could potentially save the planet from damage caused by high-energy solar particles hitting the Earth.

A diagram of a magnetic shield to protect Mars from bombardment by solar particles. NASA/Jim Green
A model of a magnetic shield protecting Mars from solar radiation where the dipole creates a magnetic field roughly as strong as that of Earth. NASA/Jim Green


The way in which the shield would work is through the use of a very powerful closed electrical circuit, called a dipole. In using the dipole to create an artificial magnetic field Mars will become relatively protected by it, which would give the planet a chance to restore its uninhabitable atmosphere. Due to previous damage caused by solar particles around 90 percent of the Red Planet’s atmosphere was destroyed. Up until around 3.5 billion years ago, the planet was thought to have been temperate and with surface water too.

Various models have demonstrated how this shield could help Mars significantly by lowering the atmospheric pressure on the planet. Warmth would hit the plant and Mars’s polar ice caps would begin to melt, flooding the world with liquid water. Green commented, “Perhaps one-seventh of the ancient ocean could return to Mars.” So, maybe this really will be the next big step towards setting up for civilization on Mars, but for now, we will just have to wait and see what happens.



More News To Read

Hot this week

Brooklyn Defendants Charged in Rideshare Hacking Scheme: Jailbroken Phones Used to Exploit Uber

Brooklyn federal court has charged two defendants, Eliahou Paldiel...

Detecting Defects in Next-Generation Computer Chips: The Future of TMD-Based Semiconductors

As technology advances, the demand for smaller, more powerful...

Merging Galaxies in the Early Universe: The Birth of a Monster Galaxy

Astronomers have recently observed a fascinating event in the...

Topics

Brooklyn Defendants Charged in Rideshare Hacking Scheme: Jailbroken Phones Used to Exploit Uber

Brooklyn federal court has charged two defendants, Eliahou Paldiel...

Detecting Defects in Next-Generation Computer Chips: The Future of TMD-Based Semiconductors

As technology advances, the demand for smaller, more powerful...

Merging Galaxies in the Early Universe: The Birth of a Monster Galaxy

Astronomers have recently observed a fascinating event in the...

NASA’s Roman Space Telescope to Uncover Galactic Fossils and Dark Matter Mysteries

NASA’s Roman Space Telescope is set to transform our...

Black Myth: Wukong – A Game that Gamers Love Despite Media Backlash

In a gaming industry increasingly influenced by social agendas,...

Gravitational Waves Reveal a ‘Supercool’ Secret About the Big Bang

In 2023, physicists made a groundbreaking discovery that could...

Related Articles

Popular Categories

Send this to a friend