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by UhUhUhUh
3302 days ago
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These are indeed "arguments". There is an actual reason though. Mars cannot be terraformed because it has no magnetosphere. Which is also probably why it is like it is now in the first place. Creating a magnetosphere is not impossible theoretically but vastly unrealistic at this time. |
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The current atmosphere weighs about 25 terratonnes[1] and MAVEN estimated solar wind is removing 100 grams/sec[2]. That's an annual loss rate of 0.12 parts per billion (10e-10). A thicker atmosphere might strip more quickly, but we only want to thicken it by 2 orders of magnitude. Even if the loss fraction increases quadratically with pressure at 0m altitude, that gets you 10e-6, a millionth o your atmosphere per year, or about 1% every 10,000 years.
[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atmosphere_of_Mars
[2]: https://www.nasa.gov/press-release/nasa-mission-reveals-spee...