{"id":160922,"date":"2025-06-05T18:42:09","date_gmt":"2025-06-05T18:42:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/160922\/"},"modified":"2025-06-05T18:42:09","modified_gmt":"2025-06-05T18:42:09","slug":"terraforming-mars-might-actually-work-and-scientists-now-have-a-plan-to-try-it","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/160922\/","title":{"rendered":"Terraforming Mars Might Actually Work and Scientists Now Have a Plan to Try It"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Images <\/a>Credit: Daein Ballard\/Wikimedia<\/p>\n

Mars is a frozen shadow of its former self. Its riverbeds are dry, its air is thin and chock-full of carbon dioxide, and its soil is soaked with salts hostile to life. Yet beneath the red dust lies planet-sized potential \u2014 a planet that once had lakes and skies and, perhaps, the right conditions for life to begin.<\/p>\n

Now, a team of researchers wants to nudge Mars back toward that lost possibility, not out of nostalgia, but to ask a deeper question: can a dead world be brought back to life?<\/p>\n

These scientists are not proposing a colony or a biodome. They are talking about something far more audacious \u2014 reshaping a planet\u2019s climate, engineering its chemistry, and seeding it with Earth life.<\/p>\n

They want to terraform Mars.<\/p>\n

In a new paper, a group of planetary scientists, biologists, and engineers make the case for treating Mars as the ultimate ecological experiment. The study, led by Erika Alden DeBenedictis<\/a> of Pioneer Research Labs, outlines a phased plan for making Mars habitable over centuries. <\/p>\n

For decades, the idea of terraforming Mars belonged to the realm of science fiction. Now, scientists are saying it\u2019s time to treat it as science.<\/p>\n

\u201cThirty years ago, terraforming Mars wasn\u2019t just hard \u2014 it was impossible,\u201d DeBenedictis told Space.com<\/a>. \u201cBut new technology like [SpaceX\u2019s] Starship and synthetic biology have now made it a real possibility.\u201d<\/p>\n

A New Case for Terraforming<\/p>\n

The paper proposes that recent advances in climate engineering, synthetic biology, and spaceflight justify a fresh research agenda. <\/p>\n

Mars is cold. Its average temperature hovers around minus 70\u00b0C, and its paper-thin atmosphere \u2014 just 0.6% the pressure of Earth\u2019s \u2014 can\u2019t support liquid water for long. The first step toward terraforming is to heat things up.<\/p>\n

The study outlines a phased approach. The first phase is abiotic: warm the Martian surface using new techniques like solar sails, engineered aerosols, or tiling areas with ultralight silica aerogels. These methods aim to raise surface temperatures by at least 30\u00b0C \u2014 enough to melt some of the ice locked in Mars\u2019 frozen soil. This would trigger a feedback loop that would see even more greenhouse gases dumped into the atmosphere. <\/p>\n

Currently, Mars receives only about 130 watts of solar energy per square meter \u2014 far less than Earth. But its thin atmosphere means that even small changes in heat input could dramatically alter its climate.<\/p>\n

\u201cTogether, advances in Earth\u2019s launch capacity, combined with proposed new warming techniques, could potentially raise Mars\u2019 temperature by 30\u00b0C well within the century,\u201d the authors write.<\/p>\n

From Biology to Biosphere<\/p>\n

In phase two, the focus would shift to life. Genetically engineered extremophile microbes \u2014 built to survive Mars\u2019 cold, radiation, and toxic salts \u2014 would be introduced to establish the first biological footholds. Some could even use perchlorate salts, common on Mars, as a metabolic energy source.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe now know that Mars was habitable in the past, from data returned by the Mars rovers,\u201d said co-author Edwin Kite of the University of Chicago. \u201cSo, greening Mars could be viewed as the ultimate environmental restoration challenge.\u201d<\/p>\n

These organisms would help kick off ecological succession, creating organic matter, releasing oxygen, and slowly changing the chemistry of the surface and atmosphere.<\/p>\n

Phase three would be the longest and most ambitious: building a stable biosphere that includes oxygen-rich air, potentially breathable by humans. The goal is a 0.1 bar oxygen atmosphere \u2014 enough to sustain human life without pressure suits.<\/p>\n

\u201cLife is precious \u2014 we know of nowhere else in the universe where it exists,\u201d said Harvard planetary scientist Robin Wordsworth. \u201cWe have a duty to conserve it on Earth, but also to consider how we could begin to propagate it to other worlds.\u201d<\/p>\n

Risks, Rewards, and Ethics<\/p>\n

Terraforming Mars isn\u2019t just about what\u2019s possible. It\u2019s also about what\u2019s right.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf we decide to terraform Mars, then we will really change it in ways that may or may not be reversible,\u201d cautioned co-author Nina Lanza, a planetary scientist at Los Alamos National Laboratory. \u201cMars is its own planet and has its own history.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIf we modify the environment on Mars, we\u2019re going to change the chemistry of the surface and of the subsurface, eventually,\u201d said Lanza. \u201cSuch actions might erase any traces of life on Mars.\u201d<\/p>\n

That\u2019s why the authors call for a significant ramp-up in Mars exploration. And this includes NASA\u2019s Mars Sample Return mission and future subsurface investigations. Before introducing Earth life, they argue, we must do everything possible to detect indigenous Martian life, if it exists.<\/p>\n

Still, the study\u2019s authors suggest that Mars might be the ideal place to test new ideas about planetary engineering. Unlike Earth, Mars has no entrenched industries or political constraints. It\u2019s already dead and barren. Plus, who knows what we can learn from transforming Mars. Green technologies developed for Mars \u2014 such as desiccation-resistant crops, or closed-loop biospheres \u2014 might one day help us adapt to climate change at home.<\/p>\n

\u201cDeveloping green technologies for space is a powerful strategy for maturing it for use on Earth,\u201d said DeBenedictis. \u201cMars is a unique target market because it has no oil, no existing infrastructure and no status quo.\u201d<\/p>\n

From Theory to Action<\/p>\n

While building a green Mars may take centuries or longer, the authors argue that we must begin now. That doesn\u2019t mean launching grand geoengineering projects today. It means preparing.<\/p>\n

\u201cUpcoming Mars surface missions in 2028 or 2031 should include small-scale experiments to de-risk terraforming strategies, such as warming localized regions,\u201d said DeBenedictis.<\/p>\n

The technical path forward includes modeling climate feedbacks, designing new life-supporting materials, and engineering hardy microorganisms in Mars-like chambers on Earth. The team also calls for careful laboratory studies of aerosols and solar reflectors before any future field tests.<\/p>\n

Any deployed technology, they note, must be reversible, controllable, and biologically safe.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe should really keep doing science \u2014 it\u2019s transformational,\u201d said Lanza.<\/p>\n

Ultimately, the paper suggests that the future of Mars may depend not just on rockets and microbes, but on our willingness to learn. Terraforming, in this vision, isn\u2019t a reckless escape from Earth\u2019s problems. It\u2019s an invitation to understand our own biosphere better \u2014 by trying to build one from scratch.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe don\u2019t even know what\u2019s physically or biologically possible. \u2026 If people can learn how to terraform a world such as Mars, this may be the first step to destinations beyond,\u201d the authors write. <\/p>\n

The findings appeared in the journal Nature Astronomy<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Credit: Daein Ballard\/Wikimedia Mars is a frozen shadow of its former self. Its riverbeds are dry, its air…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":160923,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3844],"tags":[790,70,413,67782,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-160922","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-space","8":"tag-mars","9":"tag-science","10":"tag-space","11":"tag-terraforming","12":"tag-uk","13":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114632231791943111","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/160922","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=160922"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/160922\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/160923"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=160922"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=160922"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=160922"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}