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An absolutely bonkers plan to give Mars an artificial magnetosphere:
As the study points out, if you want a good planetary magnetic field, what you really need is a strong flow of charged particles, either within the planet or around the planet. Since the former isn't a great option for Mars, the team looks at the latter. It turns out you can create a ring of charged particles around Mars, thanks to its moon Phobos.
Phobos is the larger of the two Martian moons, and it orbits the planet quite closely—so closely that it makes a trip around Mars every eight hours. So the team proposes using Phobos by ionizing particles from its surface, then accelerating them so they create a plasma torus along the orbit of Phobos. This would create a magnetic field strong enough to protect a terraformed Mars.
It's a bold plan, and while it seems achievable, the engineering hurdles would be significant. But as the authors point out, this is the time for ideas. Start thinking about the problems we need to solve, and how we can solve them, so when humanity does reach Mars, we will be ready to put the best ideas to the test.
Simple solution, really. It's the dependencies that are a bear...
Journal Reference:
R. A. Bamford, B. J. Kelletta, J. L. Green, et al How to create an artificial magnetosphere for Mars How to create an artificial magnetosphere for Mars
(DOI: doi.org/10.1016/j.actaastro.2021.09.023https://doi.org/10.1016/j.actaastro.2021.09.023
(Score: 3, Informative) by PiMuNu on Tuesday November 23 2021, @10:04AM (1 child)
Few GigaAmps required. Use space stations periodically arranged to contain the plasma torus.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by JoeMerchant on Tuesday November 23 2021, @03:07PM
If solar panels can be manufactured in place using mostly local materials on the moon's surface, it would be an interesting thing to study the dynamics of.
The charged torus is easy enough to imagine, but what are they doing with the other half of the charge balance equation? Is the planet itself a good sink for the other charges, or should they be dispersed wider field, maybe on a collision course with the Sun.... oooh, there's a disaster movie script starter: Terraforming operations slowly charge-unbalance the sun until it starts belching extreme flares to restore the balance...
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