Prelims: Current events of national and international importance
Why in news?
Mars has become a target of terraforming, where space agencies and research groups have been working to turn the planet into a habitable land.
- Terraforming – It is the hypothetical process of Deliberately manipulating the atmosphere, temperature, topography and ecology of a planet or natural satellite to transform it into an Earth-like body, able to support living beings from our planet.
- Core objectives – To establish 3 fundamental conditions for life – Water, Atmosphere and Temperature.
- Based on – Planetary engineering (the use of technology to change the conditions on a planet).
- Origin – The word ‘terraforming’ came from a golden-age science fiction series called the Seetee series, published in 1950.
- First proposed by – Astronomer Carl Sagan - terraforming in Venus – in a ‘Science’ journal in 1961.
- Terraforming methods –
- Adjusting the average planetary temperature.
- Adding atmospheric mass to allow water on the surface.
- Adding water, perhaps by redirecting icy comets, to form oceans and lakes.
- Biological terraforming by using genetically modified bacteria.
- Removing toxic substances in the atmosphere.
- Creating a biosphere on the planet’s surface.
- Creating areas of arable land, etc.
- Terraforming in Venus – With a surface temperature of 450 °C and a crushing atmosphere 90 times denser than Earth, Venus presents immense challenges.
- Terraforming in Mars – Over the years, Mars has become a prominent target of terraforming.
- Reason – Mars was once full of water, which was observed through the presence of the Jezero Crater.
- Challenges – Very thin atmosphere, extremely cold temperatures, and lack of a global magnetic field to protect against solar winds.
- Observations of MAVEN mission – Mars once held an atmosphere that had been stripped away due to climate change.
References
- The Hindu | Terraforming
- National Space Society | Terraforming
