Ty the Science Guy: Martian Terraforming is Sexy

Ty Newcomb
Columnist

Definition courtesy of Google

NASA released astounding news towards the end of last month — that we have found water on our planetary neighbor, Mars. Extremely salty, as cold as -94 degrees, bonafide water on Mars.

With all this said, water still equals potential for life—even some microbial extremophiles on Earth are living the little liquid water of the Antarctic tundra. This means that Mars is soaring up the list of possible astronomical bodies to terraform and eventually colonize.

Whether motivated by doomsday anxiety, resource searching, an increasingly overcrowded population, or simply by being a huge Ray Bradbury fan, many scientists have already proposed theories to the scientific community on how to terraform Mars. These include, interestingly, a giant mirror system in its atmosphere - just like in Futurama! - when future Earth in that episode faces a decidedly Martian radiation issue, in order to deflect solar radiation. Mars’ magnetic field is practically nonexistent, and so such measures would be necessary in order to make Mars into a garden world like Earth.

McNeese's Astronomical Society will hopefully be spending the next few weeks discussing the future astrobiological missions, such as Mars 2020 and ExoMars, which will send rovers to Mars to gather more data about the fourth planet's ability to support life. They might also just head outside to look at the planet and imagine themselves farming in the red soil.

And, yes, Mars is actually visible from Earth almost year-round, so grab your telescope and head out to Burton Coliseum to pick the plot of what could be your future farm home on the Red Planet.