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NASA Proposes a Magnetic Shield to Protect Mars' Atmosphere

posted by on Friday March 17 2017, @11:07PM   Printer-friendly
from the Mars-futuretech dept.

Sulla writes:

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

In essence, they suggested that by positioning a magnetic dipole shield at the Mars L1 Lagrange Point, an artificial magnetosphere could be formed that would encompass the entire planet, thus shielding it from solar wind and radiation.

[...] In addition, the positioning of this magnetic shield would ensure that the two regions where most of Mars' atmosphere is lost would be shielded

[...] As a result, Mars atmosphere would naturally thicken over time, which lead to many new possibilities for human exploration and colonization. According to Green and his colleagues, these would include an average increase of about 4 °C (~7 °F), which would be enough to melt the carbon dioxide ice in the northern polar ice cap. This would trigger a greenhouse effect, warming the atmosphere further and causing the water ice in the polar caps to melt.

Pretty SF but I enjoyed the article.

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  • (Score: 2) by Scruffy Beard 2 on Saturday March 18 2017, @05:33AM (2 children)

    by Scruffy Beard 2 (6030) on Saturday March 18 2017, @05:33AM (#480770)

    A large enough Radioisotope thermoelectric generator [wikipedia.org] would probably work.

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  • (Score: 2) by Scruffy Beard 2 on Saturday March 18 2017, @06:00AM (1 child)

    by Scruffy Beard 2 (6030) on Saturday March 18 2017, @06:00AM (#480776)

    On second thought, that may be 2 orders of magnitude short.

    Apparently the Voyager RTG's were ~400W.

    Random doc it found [cocir.org] is talking about MRI machines using ~20kW in stand-by mode, or ~10kW in "off" mode.

    This page [fonar.com] is talking 60kW for the magnet (I assume all the processing equipment would not be needed).

    • (Score: 3, Insightful) by maxwell demon on Saturday March 18 2017, @11:54AM

      by maxwell demon (1608) on Saturday March 18 2017, @11:54AM (#480819) Journal

      Random doc it found is talking about MRI machines using ~20kW in stand-by mode, or ~10kW in "off" mode.

      How much of that energy is used for fighting the influx of atmospheric heat?

      --
      The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.