General Discussion > Advanced Concepts
Increasing Mars' atmosphere with magnetic field @ Sun-Mars L1
FutureSpaceTourist:
From Planetary Science Vision 2050 workshop:
--- Quote --- Dr. Phil Metzger @DrPhiltill 17m17 minutes ago
Cool! Jim Green: put a magnetic shield at the Sun-Mars L1 point to shield Mars' atmosphere. Gigantic atmospheric test on Mars. #V2050
--- End quote ---
https://twitter.com/DrPhiltill/status/836959848868810752
--- Quote --- Dr. Phil Metzger @DrPhiltill 10m10 minutes ago
Woah. Really? Modeling say this magnetic field can raise Mars' atmosphere to 1/2 of Earth's pressure in just years, not centuries. #V2050
--- End quote ---
https://twitter.com/DrPhiltill/status/836961787090202624
FutureSpaceTourist:
--- Quote --- Sheyna Gifford @humansareawesme 13m13 minutes ago
"Mars might look like this in 700 million years - OR SOONER." Jim Green models a planetary shield to heat up #Mars #v2050 @AstrobiologyMag
https://t.co/6TuVxFvt1o
--- End quote ---
https://twitter.com/humansareawesme/status/836961705745858560
Edit: added slides attached to tweet
Robotbeat:
Wouldn't work. Solar wind comes in at a significant angle from the Sun, not a straight line.
Rei:
Is this stuff that's being talked about peer-reviewed? Is there a paper anywhere I can check out? So they're looking at a hydrogen-with-a-bit-of-helium atmosphere for Mars (aka, solar wind)? When you start adding oxygen, that would be kind of... what's the word I'm looking for here... ah yes, "explosive" ;) (Really, though, in practice, I'd just expect any produced oxygen to be consumed by the hydrogen as fast as it's made). Or do they mean the atmosphere comes from somewhere else, and they're just blocking stripping?
If they're talking solar hydrogen, I'd think that would be much more interesting for Venus. Large amounts of added hydrogen would result in the Sabatier reaction, simultaneously consuming Venus's carbon dioxide and creating seas. Bonus points if the tech can inject hydrogen in a manner that imparts relevant angular momentum (doubtful). But not having a paper to look at, I have no clue what technology exactly is being proposed.
@Robobeat: Interesting comment - as I've never looked into solar wind anisotropy, I generally just assumed that within the heliosphere, when not modified by solid objects, it was relatively isotropic due to the high particle energy (aka not prone to being distorted by gravity). If there is a relevant anisotropic component, surely it's far less than the anti-sunward component, is it not? I should read up more on this. Of course, if you're creating a magnetic field then you're going to be creating a magnetosphere, with a magnetotail (presumably the goal is to have Mars within the magnetotail). Any particles moving sideways would be affected by this, experiencing Lorentz force as they cross the field lines there just as they would any other magnetic field lines.
Note that as per the slides the point of the shield is to prevent stripping. But it's not clear whether it's also supposed to impart solar hydrogen and helium, or if not, where exactly the atmosphere is supposed to come from.
Rei:
Let's see, if they're talking about using solar wind to make atmospheres... at 1AU it's 6e8 particles per square centimeter per second... so 6e12 per square meter per second... Mars is 1,52, so with (overly) simplistic quadratic scaling assumed that'd be 2,6e12 per square meter per second... Earth's atmosphere is ~5e18kg... let's say you want 5e17 for Mars... solar wind is about 1.1g/mol... and we have 4,3e-12 mol/mē-s... let's say 100 years, so 1,36e-5 kg/mē... so to produce 5e17kg would require 3,67e22mē... aka 3,67e16kmē... equivalent to a disc 108 million km in radius... aka 0,72 AU in radius.... aka a pretty dang large segment of the solar wind ;)
Somehow I doubt that's what's being referred to here. They must just be talking about how much atmosphere would accumulate from Mars itself when you stop stripping. Could it really be that fast? Even if so, Mars has had its nitrogen stripped long ago, so I'm not sure where one could get a replacement.
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