The whole world is pretty excited right now due to the efforts of several different agencies that are focused on carrying out manned missions to Mars and then to try and create a new home for ourselves there. 

As humans, survival is our basic instinct and there are many threats to our existence that we are already well aware of. Some like climate change, global warming, nuclear warfare are man made threats while asteroid impacts, reversal of Earth’s magnetic poles, eruption of a super volcano and some others are natural threats.

We must ensure the survival of the human race for as long as possible or else all our advancements throughout history will have been for nothing. That is why, we as a race, are looking seriously at the colonisation of Mars.

Plans range from early 2030s to early 2040s to establish at least some sort of permanent human presence on the red planet but it will be quite difficult as it is literally a dead planet. One of the many challenges for any second human civilisation would be an absence of a magnetic field protecting the planet. 

Magnetic Field

You must already know that the Earth has a magnetic field surrounding it thanks to the molten core of our planet. This magnetic field is very important for our survival as it protects us from the radiation of the sun. It also protects us from solar winds without which the ozone layer would get depleted. 

There is no such magnetic field surrounding Mars. It did have one a long time ago but around 4.2 billion years ago, this magnetic field vanished. This was also the reason behind Mars’ atmosphere slowly getting lost to space, in turn creating a dead planet.

If we want to colonise Mars and create a self sustaining population there, we have to find some way to create a magnetic field around it because it is not sure if that will ever happen on its own and we can’t wait for it even if it did. 

For any civilisation to exist, there has to be a liveable atmosphere and there has to be a shield around that atmosphere to protect forever. And NASA may be trying to do just that. 

NASA’s Ambitious Plan

Image Credits: NASA/Jim Green

The plan that NASA has to deal with this problem is not only ambitious but rather sci-fi like. It aims to protect Mars and its future inhabitants using an artificial magnetic field protecting it at all times. 

It sounds something that is really difficult to believe but when Dr. Jim Green, the Director of NASA’s Planetary Science Division says it’s possible, then I think it has some weight behind it. 

The idea is that in the future, an inflatable structure could be placed at a specific distance away from the planet (in this case the Mars L1 Lagrange Point). This inflatable structure could then generate a magnetic dipole field shielding the planet. You can see how it works in the photo above. 

The NASA researchers believe that creating a magnetic field around Mars would lead to an increase in the temperature Mars (possibly melting the polar ice caps to make liquid water), start to thicken the Martian atmosphere.

All these are necessary for the sustenance of a Martial civilisation as they would need to grow plants and trees to meet their various needs along with filling the Martian atmosphere with oxygen. 

Space Exploration keeps getting more exciting by the day!