Terraforming Mars has been humanity's dream. Our planetary neighbour has long transfixed us and has even been considered a god. With the advent of spacefaring technology and gradual destruction of our planet's atmosphere, the humanity has been entertaining thoughts of settling on a different planet after making it habitable.
This is easier said than done ofcourse. On Earth, we have protection of atmosphere, ozone layer, magnetic field and whatnot. Other planets, at least those in our immediate neighbourhood do not offer such protection to those wishing to settle on there surface.
So what is the solution?
Terraforming.
Scientists have been thinking of ways to make Mars more Earth-like and one of the steps involved in making Mars more like our home planet is to raise its surface temperature. They are thinking of releasing a substance into Martian atmosphere, substance that'll trap heat.
Raising surface temperature of a whole planet is a massively difficult task. Firstly, the average surface temperature on Mars is less the -60 degrees Celsius. Secondly, it is not possible to use a substance that needs to be manufactured on Earth and then taken to Mars.
“The general idea is artificially creating a greenhouse,” says Samaneh Ansari, a Ph.D. student at Northwestern University and lead author of the new study. The study has been published in scientific journal Science Advances.
The perfect material would be made of something that can easily be made on Mars using resources available there. Scientists are planning to make nanorods using iron and aluminium, something that is available abundantly on Mars.
It is being estimated that releasing nanoparticles at the rate of 30 litres per second would increase temperature on Mars by 54 degrees Fahrenheit (12.2 degrees Celsius).
Raising the temperature will not make Mars fit for human settlement, but this was deemed to be a feasible first step.
