The Solar System #5: Mars

I think it’s fair to say that in recent decades, we’ve become pretty obsessed with Mars. And I mean it’s pretty obvious to see why. It’s our best option for a colony.

We might just need a bit of time to make it work… And maybe more simulated habitats in the middle of Hawaii. For science!

Mars is named for the Roman god of War presumably because it’s red and therefore angry but really, who knows. It has two weird-shaped moons called “Phobos” and “Deimos” whose names literally mean “fear” and “panic” so this is absolutely a nice place.

It’s a bit smaller than Earth but has about the same volume since most of the Earth is covered by water. Which is good for us but less good if you’re measuring volumes.

There’ve been SO MANY announcements over the years about scientists finding water on Mars. The most recent one seems to be the most promising though. Some claimed that images of moisture flowing on the surface proved that there were at least sometimes something that sort of might be flowing water but it turned out to probably just be sand.

In July last year though, researchers found a DEFINITELY persistent body of water buried underneath one of Mars’ poles. It’s HUGE. It’s important for us because it might be a source of water on the planet if we ever end up persuading someone to spend a butt tonne of money on getting people there. (Who’s got Elon Musk on Twitter?)

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And now for a brief interlude in which we answer the age old question of whether or not Mars soil contains all the nutrients necessary for Mark Watney to grow potatoes…..

~~~Yes~~~

Regardless of whether or not there’s water there now, it’s a definite that water has flowed on the planet at some point in the distant past. And I’m talking DISTANT. There’s evidence of rivers and oceans that existed up to 4 billion years ago. Thing is though, no one really knows how that’s possible in the first place. The existence of liquid water on a planet that’s below freezing and has been for as long as we can figure out is called the “Mars Paradox”. (Even with crazy levels (we’re talking Venus levels) of greenhouse gases, the distance away from Mars to the sun is against it being warm enough for liquid water to be a thing!)

Standing on Mars unprotected wouldn’t be the most fun thing in the world… although you’d be able to jump more than twice as high as you can on Earth… so that would mitigate the fact you wouldn’t be able to breathe for about 2 seconds before panic set in.

Those 2 seconds would be fun though.

Mars’ atmosphere is mostly CO2. Also air pressure is SIGNIFICANTLY less than Earth. Like ten times less I think. Oh and it’s COLD. It’s about -62 degrees celsius. Not fun.

Who knows though, maybe one day we’ll figure out how to get around all of these minor, life-giving details and actually move there once we completely screw up the planet we’ve got.

Whoa… that got dark.

Sorry.

Let’s move on…

Tomorrow: Jupiter

Science Space is a not-for-profit organisation at the University of Wollongong. The work presented here was written by me as a part of a larger project spear-headed by my colleague Amanda Kruger.