this post was submitted on 12 Sep 2024
78 points (72.9% liked)

Technology

34828 readers
75 users here now

This is the official technology community of Lemmy.ml for all news related to creation and use of technology, and to facilitate civil, meaningful discussion around it.


Ask in DM before posting product reviews or ads. All such posts otherwise are subject to removal.


Rules:

1: All Lemmy rules apply

2: Do not post low effort posts

3: NEVER post naziped*gore stuff

4: Always post article URLs or their archived version URLs as sources, NOT screenshots. Help the blind users.

5: personal rants of Big Tech CEOs like Elon Musk are unwelcome (does not include posts about their companies affecting wide range of people)

6: no advertisement posts unless verified as legitimate and non-exploitative/non-consumerist

7: crypto related posts, unless essential, are disallowed

founded 5 years ago
MODERATORS
 

By Albert Burneko

9:00 AM EDT on September 11, 2024

Mars does not have a magnetosphere. Any discussion of humans ever settling the red planet can stop right there, but of course it never does. Do you have a low-cost plan for, uh, creating a gigantic active dynamo at Mars's dead core? No? Well. It's fine. I'm sure you have some other workable, sustainable plan for shielding live Mars inhabitants from deadly solar and cosmic radiation, forever. No? Huh. Well then let's discuss something else equally realistic, like your plan to build a condo complex in Middle Earth.

...

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] [email protected] 127 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (31 children)

This is a pretty embarassing way to open this article:

Mars does not have a magnetosphere. Any discussion of humans ever settling the red planet can stop right there, but of course it never does. Do you have a low-cost plan for, uh, creating a gigantic active dynamo at Mars's dead core? No? Well. It's fine. I'm sure you have some other workable, sustainable plan for shielding live Mars inhabitants from deadly solar and cosmic radiation, forever. No? Huh. Well then let's discuss something else equally realistic, like your plan to build a condo complex in Middle Earth.

NASA legitimately has a plan for this, and no it's not crazy, and no it doesn't involve restarting the core of a planet:

https://phys.org/news/2017-03-nasa-magnetic-shield-mars-atmosphere.html

You just put a giant magnet in space at Mars' L1 Lagrange point (the orbital point that is stable between Mars and the sun), and then it will block the solar wind that strips Mars' atmosphere.

Otherwise cosmic rays etc are blocked and interrupted by the atmosphere, not the magnetosphere.

The confident dismissiveness of the author's tone on a subject that they are (clearly) not an expert in, let alone took the time to google, says all you really need to know about how much you should listen to them.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 month ago (17 children)

You just put a giant magnet in space at Mars' L1 Lagrange point

Well, that's a lot saner than nuking the poles.

Doesn't seem like we're near technical feasibility, though - how would you power such a massive magnet in space?

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 month ago (6 children)

as masterspace noted NASA has actually given it some thought.

"This new research is coming about due to the application of full plasma physics codes and laboratory experiments. In the future it is quite possible that an inflatable structure(s) can generate a magnetic dipole field at a level of perhaps 1 or 2 Tesla (or 10,000 to 20,000 Gauss) as an active shield against the solar wind."

source: https://phys.org/news/2017-03-nasa-magnetic-shield-mars-atmosphere.amp

It also doesn't completely protect the entire planet just two critical points on the surface.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (2 children)

as masterspace noted NASA has actually given it some thought.

Just because people talk about something at one conference that doesn't make it real, feasible, happening, etc. As the actual people said, it's "fanciful". It's literally just people talking. It doesn't matter where they work.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 month ago

that's what "some thought" means my guy

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

You're talking about the people who lowered a car from a rocket crane onto the surface of another planet, you can be thoughtfully critical, but their technical record has earned them a lot more than surface level dismissal.

load more comments (3 replies)
load more comments (13 replies)
load more comments (26 replies)