Could We Turn Other Planets and Moons Into a Second Earth?

November 25, 2016
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This planet of ours, it ain’t gonna last forever. And though who the heck knows what’s going to happen to the world that far off into the future (or even after November 8th), Life Noggin decided to conduct a little brain exercise about how we could convert a planet like Mars or Venus, or a moon like Europa, into a second Earth.

It all sounds so easy at first: make the atmosphere thicker by pumping ammonia into Mars (via ice-rich comets, smashed in from the outer solar system); add some plants to make the atmosphere warmer and similar to Earth; melt some polar caps for water—and boom, second Earth.

Of course, it’s not that easy. That’s why Earth is still the best planet. Mars doesn’t have a magnetosphere which means the atmosphere we just built on second Earth would be stripped away from radiation and solar wind. It’s an interesting thought, though.

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