Mars could sustain life under a thin layer of "frozen smoke"

SpaceX is get ready to go in a few years and NASA lunar missions are considered a stepping stone on the red planet, but the hard truth is this: Mars wants to kill you. Its gravity is detrimental to bones and muscles, it protects little from radiation and it is incredibly cold. If humans ever want to colonize Mars, they will have to find unique ways to survive.

Enter "frozen smoke". An international team of scientists is proposing to use silica airgel, sometimes called ice smoke because of its appearance, to warm the surface of the red planet sufficiently to sustain life and melt frozen water. Airgel is an incredibly lightweight material already manufactured on Earth. It is currently used as an insulator by Martian rovers Mars.

The study, published Monday in the journal Nature Astronomy, essentially created Mars-in-a-box, simulating the light that hits the planet's surface in the laboratory and placing a layer of airgel from the air. 39, about one inch thick above.

"We used a custom solar simulator to replicate the spectrum and intensity of sunlight that falls on the Martian surface," said Robin Wordsworth, the study's first author. Wordsworth and his colleagues then measured the temperature and amount of UV radiation passing through the airgel.

He added that the experiments were designed because the existing ideas to change the environment of Mars on a global scale seem "very difficult to achieve". The team wanted instead to reproduce the effects of the Earth's atmosphere on the distant planet on a much smaller scale.

"The Earth's atmosphere raises surface temperature via the greenhouse effect and blocks UV rays via the ozone layer," he said. "Any solution to habitability on Mars must do both of these things, at a minimum."

They found that the thin layer of airgel, which looks like a frozen cloud, had just done that. It could block UV rays but allow sufficient visible light to warm the surface of Mars above the melting point of the water. The airgel tiles could raise the temperature by 50 degrees Celsius (122 degrees Fahrenheit).

To complete the lab work, the team also conducted computer simulations of how the airgel shield would effect if it was placed on Martian ice deposits. Their results showed that "Earth-like temperatures" ranging from 32 to 77 degrees Fahrenheit could be reached during most of the Martian year, which would guarantee everyone a liquid water on the surface.

So what's the problem? We can just send this material to Mars and colonize, right?

Not exactly. The team stresses that, if Mars is to become liveable in the near future, philosophical and ethical questions must be seriously asked, especially if Mars still contains life. If we were to begin transporting humans and, inevitably, micro-organisms from Earth to Mars, these invasive species could threaten life already on the planet. We do not know yet whether Mars currently supports life, but it has been proposed as an answer to some of the persistent mysteries of Mars. The authors note that the creation of an autonomous system as described in the document would not promote life outside the areas protected by airgel.

Wordsworth said he planned to conduct more laboratory experiments to "explore more of Mars' environmental constraints," in addition to continuing computer simulation work. Fieldwork is also planned on Mars-like sites here on Earth, where the research team can venture into and test their airgel shields in the environment.

Originally released on July 15
Updated July 15 at 2:34 PM PT