As NASA’s Perserverance spacecraft speeds towards its February 2021 landing on Mars, many people are pondering the possibility of ordinary humans one day traveling to and living on the planet.
In the 1910s, Edgar Rice Burroughs’ masterfully written fictional books about Mars excited the public’s imagination with tales of humans traveling to the Red Planet and interacting with the native Martians. Hollywood’s 2015 movie, The Martian, teased the possibility of human survival (tenuous as it was) on Mars. Could humans really live, work and play on the surface of Mars, or will such an idea forever remain but a fantasy of literary fiction and cinematic CGI?
The problem of safely travelling to Mars aside, the first question that needs to be asked and answered is where would we live once we got to Mars? Due to the significant, constant solar radiation – not to mention periodic solar flares – that the surface of Mars is subject to due to its thin atmosphere (Earth’s atmosphere protects all life on its surface from the greater portion of the sun’s harmful radiation), we would have to live in some sort of underground structure.
Current estimates indicate at least five meters below the surface would provide the same protection level as our atmosphere. While the technology certainly exists to build such structures (NASA already has prototype Mars One shelters under construction), they would still have to be transported to Mars and constructed, perhaps by robotic construction crews, prior to any human settlers arriving.
OK, so we have a place to live once there, what other things are required? Foremost would be a supply of air to breathe – a properly-proportioned mixture of oxygen, nitrogen, and other trace gases to match that of Earth’s atmosphere. We would have to transport an adequate supply for the number of settlers on hand. That’s not a problem for a couple of astronauts carrying their own backpack supply, but certainly a more difficult task for a large number of settlers planning on emigrating there. It might be possible, over time, to grow enough oxygen-producing plants within specialized structures to generate the needed oxygen amount (to then be mixed with the other required gases); something, with enough space and time, that’s well within the realm of achievable, perhaps, once again, by robots pre-human arrival.
The next two requirements would, by necessity, be a high priority – food and water. At least initially, there would be no immediate means of obtaining water or growing crops, all water and food supplies would have to be transported to Mars, a significant and expensive logistics problem for those planning the trip, particularly if a large number. Terra-forming the Martian surface to generate a breathable atmosphere, a climate, and soil conducive to growing crops, and establishing an adequate water supply (from underground ice deposits) would probably take at least a few hundred years.
Could humans survive on Mars? Yes, at least a few could, for a short period of time, provided they took everything they needed for the time they planned to be there. Long-term settlement, however, would require a massive investment of time, money, technology, and effort; doable, yes, but would it be worth it? Perhaps. After all, the early explorers and settlers of our own planet faced many unknown challenges and life-threatening risks (though, perhaps, not to the same degree) when they set sail for distant lands, unsure of a safe arrival and what life would be like in the new world. In many ways, settling Mars would be a similar challenge, just on a much larger scale.
However, despite my own astronomy interests and science fiction-fueled dreams of traveling to distant planets, I think we humans would be far better off to invest all that time, money, technology, and effort into mitigating the significantly endangering environmental and social issues that are already confronting us. We live on a very unique (as far as we know), special and extremely beautiful island in the middle of a vast celestial ocean. It’s time we woke up to that fact and collectively worked to maintain and preserve that uniqueness, specialness and beauty, not only for ourselves, but also for the generations that follow.
Yes, the urge to and fascination of traveling midst the stars to other planets is exciting, and perhaps one day, in the distant future, humans will travel out there and settle other planets (including Mars), but if we don’t soon start to take care of the planet we live on, we’re not likely to survive as a species to ever step foot on any of those distant worlds.
This week’s sky
Mercury is too close to the sun, and, thus, not observable at present.
Jupiter (magnitude -2.54) is visible above the southern horizon around 8 p.m. It reaches its highest point (21 degrees) in the southern evening sky around 9:20 p.m., remaining visible until about 12:40 a.m., when it sinks below seven degrees above the southwest horizon.
Saturn (magnitude +0.35), as it has all summer, follows Jupiter into and across the early evening sky, becoming visible 18 degrees above the southeast horizon around 8:15 p.m. It remains visible until shortly before 10 p.m., when it disappears from view after dropping below 10 degrees above the southwest horizon shortly after 1 a.m.
Mars (magnitude -1.98 on Sept. 7, and -2.12 by Sept. 13) will continue to brighten this month and next, as it heads for its Oct. 13 opposition (when it will be at its brightest). The Red Planet is visible above the eastern horizon shortly after 10 p.m., reaching an altitude of 50 degrees above the southern horizon shortly before 4 a.m., and lingering in view until it’s lost in the dawn twilight around 6:25 a.m.
Venus (magnitude -4.3) rises in the east around 2:50 a.m., and reaches a height of 38 degrees (its highest point of the year) above the horizon before fading with the approaching dawn by about 6:25 a.m. On the morning of Sept. 13, look for the crescent moon directly above Venus in the pre-dawn sky.
Until next week, clear skies.
Events:
Sept. 7 – Venus at highest point in sky for 2020
Sept. 10 – Last quarter moon
Glenn K. Roberts lives in Stratford, P.E.I., and has been an avid amateur astronomer since he was a small child. He welcomes comments from readers at glennkroberts@gmail.com.
TEL AVIV, Israel (AP) — A rare Bronze-Era jar accidentally smashed by a 4-year-old visiting a museum was back on display Wednesday after restoration experts were able to carefully piece the artifact back together.
Last month, a family from northern Israel was visiting the museum when their youngest son tipped over the jar, which smashed into pieces.
Alex Geller, the boy’s father, said his son — the youngest of three — is exceptionally curious, and that the moment he heard the crash, “please let that not be my child” was the first thought that raced through his head.
The jar has been on display at the Hecht Museum in Haifa for 35 years. It was one of the only containers of its size and from that period still complete when it was discovered.
The Bronze Age jar is one of many artifacts exhibited out in the open, part of the Hecht Museum’s vision of letting visitors explore history without glass barriers, said Inbal Rivlin, the director of the museum, which is associated with Haifa University in northern Israel.
It was likely used to hold wine or oil, and dates back to between 2200 and 1500 B.C.
Rivlin and the museum decided to turn the moment, which captured international attention, into a teaching moment, inviting the Geller family back for a special visit and hands-on activity to illustrate the restoration process.
Rivlin added that the incident provided a welcome distraction from the ongoing war in Gaza. “Well, he’s just a kid. So I think that somehow it touches the heart of the people in Israel and around the world,“ said Rivlin.
Roee Shafir, a restoration expert at the museum, said the repairs would be fairly simple, as the pieces were from a single, complete jar. Archaeologists often face the more daunting task of sifting through piles of shards from multiple objects and trying to piece them together.
Experts used 3D technology, hi-resolution videos, and special glue to painstakingly reconstruct the large jar.
Less than two weeks after it broke, the jar went back on display at the museum. The gluing process left small hairline cracks, and a few pieces are missing, but the jar’s impressive size remains.
The only noticeable difference in the exhibit was a new sign reading “please don’t touch.”
VICTORIA – The British Columbia government is partnering with a bear welfare group to reduce the number of bears being euthanized in the province.
Nicholas Scapillati, executive director of Grizzly Bear Foundation, said Monday that it comes after months-long discussions with the province on how to protect bears, with the goal to give the animals a “better and second chance at life in the wild.”
Scapillati said what’s exciting about the project is that the government is open to working with outside experts and the public.
“So, they’ll be working through Indigenous knowledge and scientific understanding, bringing in the latest techniques and training expertise from leading experts,” he said in an interview.
B.C. government data show conservation officers destroyed 603 black bears and 23 grizzly bears in 2023, while 154 black bears were killed by officers in the first six months of this year.
Scapillati said the group will publish a report with recommendations by next spring, while an independent oversight committee will be set up to review all bear encounters with conservation officers to provide advice to the government.
Environment Minister George Heyman said in a statement that they are looking for new ways to ensure conservation officers “have the trust of the communities they serve,” and the panel will make recommendations to enhance officer training and improve policies.
Lesley Fox, with the wildlife protection group The Fur-Bearers, said they’ve been calling for such a committee for decades.
“This move demonstrates the government is listening,” said Fox. “I suspect, because of the impending election, their listening skills are potentially a little sharper than they normally are.”
Fox said the partnership came from “a place of long frustration” as provincial conservation officers kill more than 500 black bears every year on average, and the public is “no longer tolerating this kind of approach.”
“I think that the conservation officer service and the B.C. government are aware they need to change, and certainly the public has been asking for it,” said Fox.
Fox said there’s a lot of optimism about the new partnership, but, as with any government, there will likely be a lot of red tape to get through.
“I think speed is going to be important, whether or not the committee has the ability to make change and make change relatively quickly without having to study an issue to death, ” said Fox.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 9, 2024.
The European Space Agency is fast-tracking a new mission called Ramses, which will fly to near-Earth asteroid 99942 Apophis and join the space rock in 2029 when it comes very close to our planet — closer even than the region where geosynchronous satellites sit.
Ramses is short for Rapid Apophis Mission for Space Safety and, as its name suggests, is the next phase in humanity’s efforts to learn more about near-Earth asteroids (NEOs) and how we might deflect them should one ever be discovered on a collision course with planet Earth.
In order to launch in time to rendezvous with Apophis in February 2029, scientists at the European Space Agency have been given permission to start planning Ramses even before the multinational space agency officially adopts the mission. The sanctioning and appropriation of funding for the Ramses mission will hopefully take place at ESA’s Ministerial Council meeting (involving representatives from each of ESA’s member states) in November of 2025. To arrive at Apophis in February 2029, launch would have to take place in April 2028, the agency says.
This is a big deal because large asteroids don’t come this close to Earth very often. It is thus scientifically precious that, on April 13, 2029, Apophis will pass within 19,794 miles (31,860 kilometers) of Earth. For comparison, geosynchronous orbit is 22,236 miles (35,786 km) above Earth’s surface. Such close fly-bys by asteroids hundreds of meters across (Apophis is about 1,230 feet, or 375 meters, across) only occur on average once every 5,000 to 10,000 years. Miss this one, and we’ve got a long time to wait for the next.
When Apophis was discovered in 2004, it was for a short time the most dangerous asteroid known, being classified as having the potential to impact with Earth possibly in 2029, 2036, or 2068. Should an asteroid of its size strike Earth, it could gouge out a crater several kilometers across and devastate a country with shock waves, flash heating and earth tremors. If it crashed down in the ocean, it could send a towering tsunami to devastate coastlines in multiple countries.
Over time, as our knowledge of Apophis’ orbit became more refined, however, the risk of impact greatly went down. Radar observations of the asteroid in March of 2021 reduced the uncertainty in Apophis’ orbit from hundreds of kilometers to just a few kilometers, finally removing any lingering worries about an impact — at least for the next 100 years. (Beyond 100 years, asteroid orbits can become too unpredictable to plot with any accuracy, but there’s currently no suggestion that an impact will occur after 100 years.) So, Earth is expected to be perfectly safe in 2029 when Apophis comes through. Still, scientists want to see how Apophis responds by coming so close to Earth and entering our planet’s gravitational field.
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“There is still so much we have yet to learn about asteroids but, until now, we have had to travel deep into the solar system to study them and perform experiments ourselves to interact with their surface,” said Patrick Michel, who is the Director of Research at CNRS at Observatoire de la Côte d’Azur in Nice, France, in a statement. “Nature is bringing one to us and conducting the experiment itself. All we need to do is watch as Apophis is stretched and squeezed by strong tidal forces that may trigger landslides and other disturbances and reveal new material from beneath the surface.”
The Goldstone radar’s imagery of asteroid 99942 Apophis as it made its closest approach to Earth, in March 2021. (Image credit: NASA/JPL–Caltech/NSF/AUI/GBO)
By arriving at Apophis before the asteroid’s close encounter with Earth, and sticking with it throughout the flyby and beyond, Ramses will be in prime position to conduct before-and-after surveys to see how Apophis reacts to Earth. By looking for disturbances Earth’s gravitational tidal forces trigger on the asteroid’s surface, Ramses will be able to learn about Apophis’ internal structure, density, porosity and composition, all of which are characteristics that we would need to first understand before considering how best to deflect a similar asteroid were one ever found to be on a collision course with our world.
Besides assisting in protecting Earth, learning about Apophis will give scientists further insights into how similar asteroids formed in the early solar system, and, in the process, how planets (including Earth) formed out of the same material.
One way we already know Earth will affect Apophis is by changing its orbit. Currently, Apophis is categorized as an Aten-type asteroid, which is what we call the class of near-Earth objects that have a shorter orbit around the sun than Earth does. Apophis currently gets as far as 0.92 astronomical units (137.6 million km, or 85.5 million miles) from the sun. However, our planet will give Apophis a gravitational nudge that will enlarge its orbit to 1.1 astronomical units (164.6 million km, or 102 million miles), such that its orbital period becomes longer than Earth’s.
It will then be classed as an Apollo-type asteroid.
Ramses won’t be alone in tracking Apophis. NASA has repurposed their OSIRIS-REx mission, which returned a sample from another near-Earth asteroid, 101955 Bennu, in 2023. However, the spacecraft, renamed OSIRIS-APEX (Apophis Explorer), won’t arrive at the asteroid until April 23, 2029, ten days after the close encounter with Earth. OSIRIS-APEX will initially perform a flyby of Apophis at a distance of about 2,500 miles (4,000 km) from the object, then return in June that year to settle into orbit around Apophis for an 18-month mission.
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Furthermore, the European Space Agency still plans on launching its Hera spacecraft in October 2024 to follow-up on the DART mission to the double asteroid Didymos and Dimorphos. DART impacted the latter in a test of kinetic impactor capabilities for potentially changing a hazardous asteroid’s orbit around our planet. Hera will survey the binary asteroid system and observe the crater made by DART’s sacrifice to gain a better understanding of Dimorphos’ structure and composition post-impact, so that we can place the results in context.
The more near-Earth asteroids like Dimorphos and Apophis that we study, the greater that context becomes. Perhaps, one day, the understanding that we have gained from these missions will indeed save our planet.
