Mars could not turn into a new Earth | News instantly from LAVOZ.com.ar

Madrid. "Terraforming" is a hypothetical process that would change the conditions of a planet to make it habitable for the Earth's species.

In theory, Mars would be the most appropriate candidate. But a new study says that it lacks a vital ingredient to reach it: carbon dioxide.

An article published Monday in Nature Astronomy states that this process of terraforming is not a viable possibility for Mars with current technology

The Red Planet is at the center of the world. interest of scientists. The discoveries made about its features are always news, as the news of last week about the existence of a liquid and salty water lake under the ice of its south pole.

Two American experts, Bruce Jakosky and Christopher Edwards, reviewed the idea of ​​terraforming in the light of current knowledge about the red planet.

One of the goals is to create an atmosphere that allows to retain more heat through the greenhouse effect.

A gas that facilitates this process is CO2. In fact, its greater concentration in the Earth's atmosphere by human action is what generates climate change.

CO2 rocks

An option to incorporate CO2 into the atmosphere of the red planet is to release the gas that is A warmer atmosphere would allow the presence of liquid water to the surface, a ingredient necessary for life as we know it on Earth.

The researchers studied how much CO2 has been captured in Martian rocks from data provided by rovers and space probes over the last twenty years.

In the best scenario, according to the authors, easily accessible CO2 "could only triple the atmospheric pressure of Mars", a fifth of the change needed to make it habitable.

And that would only increase the temperature by less than ten degrees. The average temperature of Mars is 46 degrees below zero

Furthermore, most of the CO2 present in reservoirs is not available and therefore can not be easily mobilized into the atmosphere .

that terraforming Mars using the known CO2 on the planet would need technologies that are far ahead of those currently available.