A stream of liquid water may be overflowing beneath Mars’ rugged rocky crust, enough to form an entire ocean, according to a NASA study, the results of which were published Monday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS ). .
Here’s more about NASA’s latest discovery and what it tells us about the potential for human settlements on the Red Planet in the future:
How did NASA find water on Mars?
NASA’s robotic outer space explorer, the InSight Lander, landed on Mars in 2018. It studied seismic waves on the planet, which read data from more than 1,300 earthquakes on Mars before shutting down two years ago.
InSight collected data from a plain near the planet’s equator called Elysium Planitia.
A group of researchers combined this data with computer models and speculated that groundwater is the most likely explanation for the seismic readings.
Although NASA found liquid salt water on Mars in 2015, the latest discovery is significant because it indicates the large amount of water the planet possibly contains in fractures 11.5 km (7.15 miles) to 20 km (12.4 miles) underground.
The research’s lead scientist, Vashan Wright of the Scripps Institution of Oceanography at the University of California, San Diego, said that if the InSight data collected at Elysium Planitia is representative of the rest of Mars, the water would be enough to fill a global ocean. at 2 km (0.6 to 1.2 miles) depth.
Drills and other equipment will be needed to investigate and confirm the presence of water.
Scientists discovered long ago that Mars once had water, perhaps even in large quantities. Last year, the Chinese Mars rover also discovered that water may be more widespread than previously thought.
“There were thoughts that some of the water escaped when Mars lost its atmosphere,” Wright told Al Jazeera.
How did Mars lose its atmosphere?
Alastair Gunn, a radio astronomer at the University of Manchester’s Jodrell Bank Center for Astrophysics, told the BBC that Mars used to have a strong magnetic field like Earth.
The movement of molten iron in the Earth’s core generates the field, which protects from cosmic radiation and solar wind, which refers to energetic charged particles that flow from the sun.
However, Mars cooled internally and shut down this field. This solar wind stripped Mars of its atmosphere, making it cold and dry.
Will there be human settlements on Mars?
A NASA rover called Perseverance Rover, which launched in 2020, produced oxygen on Mars, Amitabha Ghosh, a space scientist who worked with NASA, told Al Jazeera. “So we only need some form of water for human existence as well as to produce rocket fuel,” Ghosh said.
Plans for humans to inhabit Mars are not new.
Billionaire and technology entrepreneur Elon Musk has been striving to colonize Mars for more than a decade under SpaceX, his rocket company.
SpaceX employees have long been developing a design for a Martian city where humans roam, complete with domed habitats and spacesuits.
“Elon Musk is building a Starship that can transport 200 people to Mars in six months. Everything is working out,” Ghosh added.
The SpaceX website considers Mars to be one of Earth’s closest habitable neighbors.
Musk isn’t the only one who dreams of the city on Mars. The UAE’s space program, particularly the Mohammed Bin Rashid Space Center, aims to establish a human settlement on Mars by 2117.
“In 10-15 years, it might not seem like science fiction anymore,” Ghosh said.
Who would live on Mars?
It is unlikely that most people will be able to live on Mars if human settlements are established on the planet.
Space missions are very expensive. In 2011, Cirque Du Soleil billionaire Guy Laliberte paid $35 million to go to space.
Las Vegas-based Bigelow Space Operations (BSO) said in 2019 that it would charge private astronauts $52 million per seat to visit the International Space Station for a month or two.
Should humans live on Mars?
The prospect of humans living on the Red Planet has raised ethical questions: some thinkers question whether it is right to move to a “backup planet” after causing environmental damage on Earth.
Ian Stoner, an instructor in the Department of Philosophy at Saint Paul College Minnesota, wrote a paper arguing against establishing human settlements on Mars on moral grounds.
“A human presence on Mars, he argued in a paper, will likely constitute a significantly invasive or destructive investigation of the Martian environment.” Humans will transmit bacteria, yeast and fungi into the planet’s environment, he added.
The Earth is already marked by environmental damage due to rising temperatures that have resulted in rising sea levels, floods and droughts. A 2023 Pew Research Center survey asked 10,329 American adults about their top priorities for NASA missions. Sixty percent of respondents wanted NASA to monitor asteroids that could hit Earth.
For 50 percent of respondents, the top priority was monitoring essential parts of Earth’s climate system. Only 11 percent of respondents declared exploring Mars as their top priority.
Katharine Hayhoe, director of the Climate Science Center at Texas Tech University, rebuked the idea that Mars should be colonized instead of combating climate change on Earth, in an interview with the North American publication Aerospace America.
“If we do not take steps to reduce and eventually eliminate our carbon emissions, they will overwhelm human civilization as we know it, long before Mars is ready to be colonized by large numbers of people,” Hayhoe said.
Although space missions have revealed new details about the presence of water and oxygen on the Red Planet, Mars has not been explored by manned space missions. There is not enough information about how long humans can sustainably survive on the planet.
This story originally appeared on Aljazeera.com read the full story
