Shooting ‘Glitter’ Over the Martian Sky. This Is the Latest Idea From a Group of Scientists to Make the Red Planet Habitable

The idea is that Mars will one day be a habitable place for humanity. Today, we know that the key ingredient, water, is feasible. Still, we need much more for the Red Planet to stop being a utopia. This is why experts often talk about “terraforming,” and in recent years, we've heard about all kinds of projects to make Mars “our way.” The latest effort is one we certainly didn’t see coming: throwing up dust to make it habitable.

The study. The work published in the journal Science Advances started from one of Mars’s significant challenges: its warming, which so far seemed to involve the production of greenhouse gasses on site. Moreover, most of the necessary ingredients aren’t available there, and even if they were, the proposed method would probably take thousands of years.

The researchers have developed a method using metal nanorods that are injectable into the Martian atmosphere. They explain that the technique could help accomplish the desired task much faster than the greenhouse gas-based approach. Their computer simulations showed that enough of them “would amplify the sunlight reaching the Martian surface and prevent heat from escaping from the ground.”

The researchers have developed a method using metal nanorods that are injectable into the Martian atmosphere. They explain that the technique could help accomplish the desired task much faster than the greenhouse gas-based approach. Their computer simulations showed that enough of them “would amplify the sunlight reaching the Martian surface and prevent heat from escaping from the ground.”

The Mars problem. The average temperature on Mars’ surface is minus 76 degrees Fahrenheit, and the atmospheric pressure is only 6 to 7 millibars, compared to 1,013 millibars at sea level on Earth. Therefore, the thin Martian atmosphere, composed mainly of carbon dioxide, is unbreathable. In addition, researchers have discovered the water on Mars is in the polar ice caps and the subtropical ice sheets found mainly in the high and mid-latitudes.

Mars’ natural greenhouse effect warms the planet only about 41 degrees Fahrenheit, so the first step in terraforming it would be to increase the amount of greenhouse gasses in the atmosphere. Experts have proposed many methods, but none seem as close as the current one. According to researchers at Northwestern University in Illinois, their method uses resources already available on the Red Planet and is 5,000 times more efficient.

The key: dust. The planet has large amounts of dust, which is rich in iron and aluminum. Researchers could engineer these materials to create tiny particles called nanorods. These could better trap escaping thermal infrared radiation and scatter sunlight toward the surface.

We’re talking about tiny nanorods, roughly 9 micrometers long, about the same size as commercially available glitter. Still, unlike glitter, the researchers would design them to have half the wavelength of thermal radiation to more efficiently absorb the heat escaping from Mars.

The calculations. The team believes it'd need to process 706 million cubic feet of Martian dust each year to obtain 24 million cubic feet of metals to make the nanorods. This would require large-scale production, equivalent to about three-thousandths of the annual metal output on Earth.

Also, experts say 3D printing machines on Mars to do the work in situ could help cut costs, while large lenses and mirrors could focus sunlight and evaporate dust particles, isolating metals for their further extraction and turning into nanorods.

Spreading “glitter”. Once the team manufactures these nanoparticles, they'll shoot them into the Martian sky at 8 gallons per second through a pipe between 33 and 330 feet high, where updrafts are most vigorous. “If they could be released into an updrafting Hadley cell, that would be even better, as it would enable dispersion of the nanorods into both hemispheres, up to altitudes of 37 miles,” researchers explain.

Anyway, this is an idea on paper that none of us would see if it came to fruition. It’s not infeasible, but such a process would probably take several centuries. And even if the temperature is high enough, Mars will certainly still be far from habitable, at least as we currently understand the definition.

This article was written by Miguel Jorge and originally published in Spanish on Xataka.

Image | Inkwina, Kamran Abdullayev

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