NASA proposes a magnetic shield to protect Mars' atmosphere (2017) | Hacker News Reader

NASA proposes a magnetic shield to protect Mars' atmosphere (2017)

phys.org

5 pointsColanR9 comments

I wonder if it makes sense also to deorbit Phobos (instead of exploding a thermonuclear device on the surface per Elon Musk suggestion). The resulting series of collisions might release enough CO2 to create a denser atmosphere.

I think the magnetic shield would still be needed, though, since the solar wind would otherwise just strip away the new atmosphere.

Do both! I think the magnetic shield is an excellent idea.

If we ever end of doing the deorbit, I really want to see a video of the impact. That would be intense.

Wouldn't it take hundreds of millions of years for it to lose it's atmosphere without the magnetic field? It's probably much easier to just top it up a bit every few million years.

The energy required to deorbit Phobos is far beyond or technological means. It has a mass of 10 quadrillion kg

That's a good question, though I don't think it's exactly far beyond our technological means.

May be a bunch of solar-powered rail guns ([0]) to fling a fraction of the Phobos mass into space.

Now, to feel the need to install something like this on Phobos - is beyond our means, as a species.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass_driver

If we can't fix our own planet from our (so far) relatively minor degradations, we have no hope whatsoever that we can expect to completely change another planet without our copious earthly resources around to help us.

It's a bit like the announcements "Wow! We've found a planet that we could live on easily!". The only problem being that planet is 'only' 200 light years away. Two hundred light years. It's going to take the Voyager space craft thousands of years to reach an equivalent distance of the nearest star which is but a mere FOUR light years away.

Whistling in the wind.

I would argue that the manipulation of the interactions of geological & solar radiation systems is orders of magnitude less unpredictable than manipulating intentionally manipulating living systems on a living planet.

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