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#1 2003-09-25 13:03:37

Palomar
Member
From: USA
Registered: 2002-05-30
Posts: 9,734

Re: Mercury Terraformation?

~Eternal~ wrote (in the "Terraforming Venus" thread):

"I personally would like to see some theories on Mercury "terraformation" besides my own."

*Welcome to New Mars!  Care to share your theories?  You've got me curious.

--Cindy


We all know [i]those[/i] Venusians: Doing their hair in shock waves, smoking electrical coronas, wearing Van Allen belts and resting their tiny elbows on a Geiger counter...

--John Sladek (The New Apocrypha)

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#2 2003-09-25 14:13:07

~Eternal~
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Registered: 2003-09-25
Posts: 211

Re: Mercury Terraformation?

Well Mercury is a relatively small planet with no core/or little core right?
First we freeze(if any) the Mercurian core.
Then and probably the hardest but not impossible thing to do is move the planet farther from the sun.
After this is accomplished I have chosen an Idea that well basically goes against any terraformation theory yet,
We turn the majority of the planet into a flameball with a small "mantle".
Then we begin the long process of adding Asteroid material to the surface(after remove the ice for possible oceans and water for Venus).
Then we began building up an O? and O? atmosphere(much more O? than normal Oxygen).
Slowly we add common elements for plants, Nitrogen, Small Carbon Dioxide, and some Argon(I do believe we will need lights on the hellishly long night aye?).
Finally after centuries of work,
we conclude are amazing work by living their.
Sure it won't be a tropical paradise but It will show mans greatest achievement of all time.


The MiniTruth passed its first act #001, comname: PATRIOT ACT on  October 26, 2001.

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#3 2003-09-25 19:28:29

Earthfirst
Member
From: Phoenix Arizona
Registered: 2002-09-25
Posts: 343

Re: Mercury Terraformation?

Merury is ofthen over looked, for many reasons. First merury has almost no atmosphere, the reason for this might because it too close to the and it gravity is too small to over come the solar winds. Second Merury looks like the moon lot of impacts. Third it has non of the big canyons or gaint volcanes or dry river beds, so dont think it worth goung too.
But Merury has many good features that are over look. First its gravity is the same as mars, since it formed close to the sun its rich in rare eath metals like gold. Like are moon only one side faces the sun, this is good because on the dark side you dont deal with the solar wind or solar flares. On the dark side of merury there is water ice, which for a colony means water to drink and grow food, and oxygen to breath.
    In my veiw Merury is a great place to build a colony, it is rich in metals, has raw materials to support life, and is easyer to get too than mars.
Terrifroming it on the other hand would hard like venus, one solution is to slam Mercury into venus, like happen to the earth when it formed its moon. If you do it the right angle  you can get two moons or one. This could slove venus thick atmosphere problem, and the day lenght, and get some new moons, add in a small ice moon from satern venus could end up looking like earth. With an big oncean one or possible two moons. Add life from earth, photosynthic bacteria, wait a billion years, and bingo earth two. It took earth that long to get a oxygen atmosphere ecause of all the iron. rust like on mars. That my solution to venus an Mercury problem!
smile  What do you think of the idea?


I love plants!

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#4 2003-10-06 18:59:49

Shaun Barrett
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From: Cairns, Queensland, Australia
Registered: 2001-12-28
Posts: 2,843

Re: Mercury Terraformation?

The idea of trying to terraform Mercury is so fraught with difficulties it's hard to know where to start.
    First of all, Eternal, it's believed Mercury has a very large iron core because its density is so great - about 5.4g/cc and about equal to Earth's. And it has a magnetic field of about 1% the strength of ours, too, which mystifies planetary scientists because it indicates a still-molten core, something unexpected in a body as small as Mercury.
    Secondly, Earthfirst, Mercury doesn't keep the same face to the Sun all the time. Its year is 88 (Earth)days while it rotates on its axis every 59 (Earth)days, which results in every part of Mercury experiencing daylight and darkness in slow succession. In fact, the days are so long, on average it's 176 (Earth) days from one sunrise to the next, which means you could easily stroll at the same speed as the equator rotates, making sunrises last as long as you want them to!
    With surface temperatures varying from +350 deg.C to -180 deg.C, about the same surface gravity as Mars (0.39g), a very elliptical orbit, little or no water that we know of, and only a vanishingly thin atmosphere of sodium vapour, the engineering required to make the place liveable is mind-boggling!
    By the time we can make Mercury another Earth, we will have such God-like powers we probably won't be interested in such trivialities. We'll probably be constructing our own planets to order in orbits of our own choosing!
                                       smile


The word 'aerobics' came about when the gym instructors got together and said: If we're going to charge $10 an hour, we can't call it Jumping Up and Down.   - Rita Rudner

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#5 2003-10-06 22:18:39

RobertDyck
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From: Winnipeg, Canada
Registered: 2002-08-20
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Re: Mercury Terraformation?

As a solar system engineering project, I would suggest terraforming Mars, Venus, Callisto, and Ganymede. Leave Luna (Earth's moon), Mercury, and Io as airless bodies. Without atmosphere these can be used for mining and industry. Luna is a great place for telescopes. The great temperature extremes on Mercury together with the long exposures to high temperature should have concentrated resources into minable deposits; great veins of metals. It would be a shame to deprive a mining/smelting operation of the natural heat source that is the sun. Io has those wonderful volcanoes. Also, an airless body can dump its tailings and slag in a pile on the surface; it won't go anywhere without an atmosphere.

The diameter of Callisto is 4880km, and Ganymede is 5268km, while Mars is 6787km, but Mercury is only 4880km. However, the Jovian moons are much lighter; Ganymede has a surface gravity only 14.6% that of the Earth and Callisto is only 12.7%, whereas Mars is 38% and Mercury is 28.4%. Gravity on the Jovian moons is rough, calculated from average density. Ganymede's average density is 1.94g/cm^3, Callisto is 1.86g/cm^3, Mars is 3.94g/cm^3, Mercury is 5.42g/cm^3, Earth is 5.515g/cm^3. Mercury's high density and low gravity would leave high concentrations of metals on the surface.

Mercury's molten core is probably caused by the tidal forces caused by the Sun's gravity. I'm not sure but I think those tidal forces are greater than tides on Earth caused by Luna. There are also probably substantial quantities of uranium and thorium in the core, creating a natural nuclear reactor like the Earth's core.

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#6 2003-10-06 22:20:08

Free Spirit
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Posts: 167

Re: Mercury Terraformation?

Poor Mercury.  It seems everybody wants to either light it on fire, smash it into other planets, draw it off into other orbits, rip it to shreds for its iron content, or some other ghastly act.  Of course Mother Earth is having to endure a lot of that on a daily basis.  sad  We should treat Earth as though there are no other planets or resources in the Solar System to save us when we inevitably screw everything up down here.


My people don't call themselves Sioux or Dakota.  We call ourselves Ikce Wicasa, the natural humans, the free, wild, common people.  I am pleased to call myself that.  -Lame Deer

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#7 2003-10-07 05:28:34

Palomar
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From: USA
Registered: 2002-05-30
Posts: 9,734

Re: Mercury Terraformation?

Poor Mercury.  It seems everybody wants to either light it on fire, smash it into other planets, draw it off into other orbits, rip it to shreds for its iron content, or some other ghastly act.  Of course Mother Earth is having to endure a lot of that on a daily basis.  sad  We should treat Earth as though there are no other planets or resources in the Solar System to save us when we inevitably screw everything up down here.

*Lol!  Yes, I agree Free Spirit.  Mercury:  The Solar System's Punching Bag?  No thanks.  I started the thread out of sheer curiosity as to how Mercury might be terraformed...although I'm a bit reluctant about terraforming anywhere.

--Cindy


We all know [i]those[/i] Venusians: Doing their hair in shock waves, smoking electrical coronas, wearing Van Allen belts and resting their tiny elbows on a Geiger counter...

--John Sladek (The New Apocrypha)

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#8 2003-10-07 05:33:17

alokmohan
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From: india
Registered: 2003-09-14
Posts: 169

Re: Mercury Terraformation?

But in theory it can be terraformed.

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#9 2003-10-07 06:04:50

Byron
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From: Florida, USA
Registered: 2002-05-16
Posts: 844

Re: Mercury Terraformation?

As a solar system engineering project, I would suggest terraforming Mars, Venus, Callisto, and Ganymede.

Um, how do you propose terraforming two of the Jovian moons when Jupiter has all that nasty radiation?  Also, would there be enough natural sunlight to grow plants on these worlds, or would you have to build "solettas" to concentrate and focus the light? (If you're going to all that kind of trouble, why not just terraform Titan...it's got a thick atmosphere already..lol)

The problem with Venus is the utter lack of water on that world...and water is the No. 1 substance you need to terraform.  Not to mention getting rid of all that CO2 in that atmosphere...even if you do manage to freeze it all out, you'd have to find some way to sequester it all under the crust or get it off-world.  While you're busy with all of that, I'll just stick with my 100-kilometer long O'Neill colonies...I bet I can get quite a few of them built before you get done with Venus...lol... big_smile

As for the Moon, I say make that the number-two place to terraform after Mars, as it would be an incredibly fun (and close) place to build a new world..  The big problem with that, of course, would be getting the spin rate up to once every 30 hours or so, as well as bringing in all the water, nitrogen, carbon, etc...but at least the Moon is a very small world, consequently requiring that much less effort to terraform.  One thing about a terraformed Moon with its clouds and "tall" atmosphere that it would be so bright that people on Earth would be able to read at night with just the light of the full Moon...lol.

Good fodder for science fiction novels, huh?  tongue

B

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#10 2003-10-07 06:51:39

Shaun Barrett
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From: Cairns, Queensland, Australia
Registered: 2001-12-28
Posts: 2,843

Re: Mercury Terraformation?

RobertDyck:-

There are also probably substantial quantities of uranium and thorium in the core, creating a natural nuclear reactor like the Earth's core.

    I assume from this that you are a supporter of the hypothesis of Dr. J. Marvin Herndon, which postulates an 8-kilometre-diameter ball of fissile material at Earth's core, mainly uranium.
    I began a thread about this idea here at New Mars last year, in "Science and Technology" (Sept. 24th '02) and extrapolated the notion somewhat in order to explain evidence for relatively recent outpourings of lava on Mars. As I understand it, the prevailing wisdom is that Mars should have lost nearly all its primeval heat due to its small size and lesser amounts of radioactive elements. But, paradoxically, the apparently recent volcanism there seems to indicate more internal heat than there ought to be.
    I went on to speculate that a nuclear reactor at Mars' core might shut down more frequently and for longer periods than Earth's reactor, due to size and gravitational differences. If so, then perhaps Mars still produces a strong global magnetic field at least some of the time but we just happen to have arrived during one of its lengthy quiescent periods.
    NuclearSpace (who started his own related thread in the same section on March 31st '03) was going to ask Dr. Herndon whether these ideas might be feasible but I haven't heard back yet. This is a disappointment for me because few things would please me more than to find that Mars is still capable of volcanism and still able to produce a magnetic field ... at least sometimes!

    You seem to have many notable contacts in scientific circles, Robert, and I was wondering whether you might have heard anything lately regarding Dr. Herndon's hypothesis?
    If so, I'd be most interested to hear about it.
                                         smile


The word 'aerobics' came about when the gym instructors got together and said: If we're going to charge $10 an hour, we can't call it Jumping Up and Down.   - Rita Rudner

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#11 2003-10-07 08:41:11

RobertDyck
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From: Winnipeg, Canada
Registered: 2002-08-20
Posts: 7,782
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Re: Mercury Terraformation?

You seem to have many notable contacts in scientific circles, Robert, and I was wondering whether you might have heard anything lately regarding Dr. Herndon's hypothesis?

I'm afraid I haven't met him or read his hypothesis. I did year via word of mouth the idea that uranium would have collected in Earth's core, and that such a concentration would start to react. I have no details, I would like to read Dr. Herndon's paper myself. I feel a magnetic field would be an important part of terraforming Mars. It would be indespensable to terraform Venus, but Venus has a liquid core. Actually, one local member told me Venus has a very thin crust and one of its continents actually completely sunk into the mantle at one point. That's a theory to explain the lack of craters on that part of Venus. I'll look up the threads you mention when I have time.

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#12 2003-10-07 11:08:16

GOM
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Registered: 2001-09-08
Posts: 127

Re: Mercury Terraformation?

The idea of trying to terraform Mercury is so fraught with difficulties it's hard to know where to start.

Exactly.  It does, however, make a very interesting idea for a good sci-fi author.

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#13 2003-10-07 12:08:46

RobertDyck
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From: Winnipeg, Canada
Registered: 2002-08-20
Posts: 7,782
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Re: Mercury Terraformation?

Callisto is actually outside Jupiter's radiation belt, so it isn't a problem. Ganymede is inside, so it will require a magnetosphere to protect it. Sunlight is much weaker at Jupiter; it's 5.2028 times as far from the sun as Earth so sunlight is 1/27.069 as bright. That would be increased by a large annulus mirror. One interesting thing about an annulus is that it's equally intense at all latitudes. For the Jovian moons it wouldn't be just an hour at dawn or dusk, it would illuminate the entire surface resulting in 24-hour sunlight. On Earth at 42.8017? latitude at high noon standard time on the spring or autumnal equinox, sunlight will be 73.37% as intense as the equator at the same time. To achieve that level of illumination over 90% of the surface of a Jovian moon the annulus must be 5.2028 times the diameter of the moon at its big end, assuming the small end is the same diameter as the moon itself. That would be a rather close fit; although the small end would hover over the "midnight" end of the moon, you probably would want to enlarge it for safety. That smallest size would also prevent any low orbit satellites. The "day" side of the moon would have direct sunlight in addition to reflected light, but reflected light would greatly outshine it. This level of illumination would provide as much average heat per unit area as the Earth. The 90% coverage would leave a disk on the day side not illuminated, and another on the night side; each disk would be roughly 44.7% the diameter of the moon. Since the rotation rate of Ganymede is 7.154553 Earth days, at the equator it would give 24 hours, 25 minutes and 53 seconds of no illumination from the annulus, just daylight, and another period the same length of time of actual night. Above 26.55? of latitude there would never be a period of no illumination from the annulus.

Venus: genetically engineer anaerobic bacteria to thrive in the clouds, and convert CO2 into some solid compound. I came up with a simple chemical in first year college, but my chemist friend believes it would be unstable. He suggested plastic. So terraforming bacteria would secrete plastic dust as its waste product. This would use retinal as the primary photo dye instead of chlorophyll since retinal is composed of just hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen, and carbon, while each molecule of chlorophyll requires one atom of magnesium. Halobacteria use retinal, so we can transplant that gene. Examine each protein to minimize the trace elements required and only permit those which are present in Venus's clouds. Once the pressure has been reduced to the point that rain can reach the surface, introduce cyanobacteria to create oxygen. Oxygen will poison the anaerobic bacteria, stopping the conversion of CO2 into plastic. Once you have oxygen and surface water, introduce endolithic bacteria and lichen. That will start creation of soil.

How to get more water? Two ways: crash an ice asteroid or comet into it, or build a very strong magnetosphere to suck in hydrogen from solar wind. At the aurora that hydrogen will burn with atmospheric oxygen to form water.

Moon: its vacuum is a great asset for industry and science. You can mine and dump the tailings anywhere, they won?t leach or otherwise migrate. You can smelt and dump slag anywhere. You can also dump toxic waste anywhere. The far side of the Moon is the ideal location for radio telescopes, and any equatorial location is ideal for space telescopes, especially interferometry telescopes that require a solid foundation. You might as well put all telescopes together so they can be serviced by a common Moon base. With that asset so close to the Earth, why spoil it?

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#14 2003-10-07 14:28:34

Byron
Member
From: Florida, USA
Registered: 2002-05-16
Posts: 844

Re: Mercury Terraformation?

Robert, why do I get the feeling that you've been putting in a lot of time and effort into these terraforming schemes??  tongue  big_smile

About the Jovian moons...is there any way you can just have sunight on one half the surface at a time?  I have a hard time sleeping when it's daylight outside, and those black-out drapes never really work...ask the folks up in the polar regions around the summer solstice how much sleep they get that time of the year..lol...

About Venus...that sounds very clever, the idea of using bateria to convert CO2 into plastic..would this plastic be something that would actually be useful for building materials and the like?  How long would this process take?  Also, what's your idea for spinning Venus up to a "normal" rotational speed?  I guess one thing you could do is to harvest 10 to 20-kilometer wide protoplanets from the Kupier Belt and slam them into Venus in the direction you want it to spin...but I guess you would have to use quite a few of those biggies to reach your goal, huh?...lol.

As for the Moon, I see your point about keeping it a vacuum...the people of Earth would probably have a hard time dealing with the idea of a terraformed Moon anyhow.

Lastly, any ideas concerning Titan?  Or is it just too cold and remote to even consider it as a terraforming project?

B

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#15 2003-10-07 16:32:29

RobS
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From: South Bend, IN
Registered: 2002-01-15
Posts: 1,701
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Re: Mercury Terraformation?

Don't forget that the end-result of warming Ganymede and Callisto to Earth like temperatures will be an ocean hundreds of miles deep. If Ganymede and Callisto both have densities a bit less than 2, water being 1 and rock being 3-4, that tells you they are close to half water. Of course, if you could ship all that water to Venus you'd kill two bird with one stone, but somehow I doubt that's practical!

As for segregating the carbon dioxide in Venus's atmosphere, initially it has to segregate into a material that remains a solid at hellish temperatures, and as it accumulates and oxygen accumulates in the atmosphere, it has to be a substance that does not burn in oxygen. I doubt there are any candidates for such a substance! And if there were, one would end up with an atmosphere with about 70 or 80 atmospheres of oxygen, which is about 350 times more than the Earth's atmosphere and about 50 times more than oxygen toxicity for humans. If you shipped the oxygen to Ganymede, Callisto, and Mercury, you'd still have too much!

So I wouldn't hold my breath! The timescales for these projects, if doable at all, are probably tens of thousands of years, and that would be yet another disincentive. . .

         -- RobS

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#16 2003-10-07 17:00:36

RobertDyck
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From: Winnipeg, Canada
Registered: 2002-08-20
Posts: 7,782
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Re: Mercury Terraformation?

As for segregating the carbon dioxide in Venus's atmosphere, initially it has to segregate into a material that remains a solid at hellish temperatures, and as it accumulates and oxygen accumulates in the atmosphere, it has to be a substance that does not burn in oxygen. I doubt there are any candidates for such a substance! And if there were, one would end up with an atmosphere with about 70 or 80 atmospheres of oxygen, which is about 350 times more than the Earth's atmosphere and about 50 times more than oxygen toxicity for humans.

That was the problem with Carl Segan's idea. I am trying to update it. He started with only cyanobacteria, which would incinerate as it fell into the hot lower atmosphere leaving a layer of carbon. I'm saying we need a solid that will sequester both the carbon and oxygen from CO2. That will reduce the total mass of atmosphere without creating oxygen. Once you reduce CO2 sufficiently, the greenhouse effect will lessen and the planet will cool. Once it has cooled enough, rain will reach the surface. Only then do you seed Venus with bacteria that will produce oxygen. Perhaps not even then, you have to ensure the total mass of oxygen is not toxic for humans. The timing would have to calculate the rate at which oxygenic bacteria will displace anaerobic bacteria, so the oxygen level is the desired end point.

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#17 2003-10-07 17:28:37

RobertDyck
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From: Winnipeg, Canada
Registered: 2002-08-20
Posts: 7,782
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Re: Mercury Terraformation?

Recalculating I discovered a math error. The intensity of light would be much lower if spread over that large area. For a Jovian moon, the reflected light intensity would be only 2.7105% as intense as Earth on the equator at high noon on an equinox, or equal to 88.4468? latitude on Earth at the same time. You could intensify it to a narrow band, only 10% the area of the moon would produce 24.3945% the light, or 5% area for 48.789% the light, or 3% area for 81.3151% as much light as Earth's equator at high noon on an equinox. But realize natural daylight on a Jovian moon is 3.6942% as intense as Earth's equator at high noon on an equinox. A bright band at the day/night terminator would be blinding in comparison. Also, Ganymede has a "day" that is 3 Earth days, 13 hours, 51 minutes and 16.7 seconds; and a night that is just as long. The total time from dawn until dawn is just over a week. You might want to regulate that with an actual door over the windows, not just curtains. Perhaps shutters on the inside without louvers. Callisto's rotation period is 16.68902 Earth days; should I work that out into Earth days, hours, minutes, and seconds for each of day and night?

Changing the rotation rate or orbit of a body as big as a planet or moon is not practical. We have to work with what is there now.

As for Titan, its annulus would have a large end 90.9887 times the diameter of the moon, again assuming the small end is the same diameter as the moon itself. (The small end would just touch the shadow of the moon.) That is one hell of a big mirror.

As for temperature: Earth is a ball of red-hot liquid magma; only the crust is cool. The Earth is 12,756.28km in diameter, but the crust is only 24km (15 miles) thick. Beneath that is the same magma you see coming out of a volcano. If the Earth can appear cool above such a boiling inferno, then a warm surface can be maintained above a cold mantle. We just need sufficient insulation beneath the working surface. I see the Jovian moons initially being tundra until we grow peat bogs. The peat will insulate the surface. You could also grow mats of sea weed or other plants that could lay a thick fibrous mat. Once the mat is thick enough, the surface will warm. Do you think it hard to develop fast growing plants for a swamp?

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#18 2003-10-07 18:14:05

Shaun Barrett
Member
From: Cairns, Queensland, Australia
Registered: 2001-12-28
Posts: 2,843

Re: Mercury Terraformation?

Hi again Robert!
    If you get time, could you please give me a link to this annulus mirror of yours, preferably with pictures?
    I'm having trouble visualising what it is you're describing for the Jovian moons.
    Many thanks!
                                   smile


The word 'aerobics' came about when the gym instructors got together and said: If we're going to charge $10 an hour, we can't call it Jumping Up and Down.   - Rita Rudner

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#19 2003-10-08 05:42:46

alokmohan
Member
From: india
Registered: 2003-09-14
Posts: 169

Re: Mercury Terraformation?

In principal we may terraform mercury in future.

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#20 2003-10-08 12:59:50

RobertDyck
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From: Winnipeg, Canada
Registered: 2002-08-20
Posts: 7,782
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Re: Mercury Terraformation?

If you get time, could you please give me a link to this annulus mirror of yours, preferably with pictures?

I'm afraid I'm not much of an artist. All I have is the Draw component of MS-Word or MS-Paint. I have a picture here

An annulus is a thin ring mirror. For Mars it is a lot easier to build; it's a narrow ring orbiting the day/night terminator line and must precess as the planet orbits the sun to ensure it stays over the day/night terminator. It would be a cone section so that the inner mirror surface is always 45? to the surface. That would reflect light from the entire orbit onto the surface of Mars at the day/night terminator. The illuminated line would circle all the way around the planet, from equator to north pole, around to the equator on the other side, down to the south pole, and back up to the equator.

For Ganymede the cone section is a lot bigger, and it isn't exactly 45?. It's actually a parabolic dish with the center cut out. The drawing shows a cone section at roughly 45?, but it must be a dish to focus light on the moon. The moon must be at the focus of the parabola. Making such a huge thing orbit will be difficult. It would be stacked rings rotating at different rates to ensure centrifugal force balances gravity, but the sections away from the center line will be pulled by gravity toward the center. The stacked rings will crush in toward the center from their own weight. That requires compressile strength. The part behind the moon is smaller than the part in front of the moon, so making it balance will be tricky. It may need carbon nanofibers for sufficient strength and low mass.

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#21 2003-10-08 19:10:55

Shaun Barrett
Member
From: Cairns, Queensland, Australia
Registered: 2001-12-28
Posts: 2,843

Re: Mercury Terraformation?

Thanks Robert!
                               smile


The word 'aerobics' came about when the gym instructors got together and said: If we're going to charge $10 an hour, we can't call it Jumping Up and Down.   - Rita Rudner

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#22 2003-10-09 13:25:47

Earthfirst
Member
From: Phoenix Arizona
Registered: 2002-09-25
Posts: 343

Re: Mercury Terraformation?

Dude wheres my car?
In response to about post on the earth interior.
In an post some one said that the earth interior was very hot liquid rock, This is true only only for the outer core, the mantel is made up of solid rock, but the upper part is weak and somtimes melt from decompression to give use volcanic rock on the surface. But the mantle does convect plastical because under so much heat and pressure rock flow like a liquid slowly, but is still solid rock. About as slow as the continents dirf because it the mantels convection that moves them.
On ice worlds their mantels could be covecting to but with ice, ice like rock can flow plastic under enough pressure, this happens on earth with glaciers. Unlike rock ice does need a lot of heat and pressure to convect, so even though they not be as hot as the earths intior ice world could have mantels that are even more active than earths. Plus if their are slaty oceans  their currents could easly generate a magnetic sphere like what earths liquid metal outer core does. So these worlds could be simialer to earth but much colder.
If you could raise the temp on a large ice world, wouldnit you turn the surface into an gaint ocean? Because although the largest ones like Titan, Ganymede, are large than mercury. their densitys are just about 50% ice and rock, so their surface gravity would be less. Although Titan already haves an atmosphere a little bit more thick than earths of N2 gas, so all you would have do is break up the water ice into O2 and other than the could temps and methan and ethian coulds rain and lakes, it would be a nice place.
If you did raise the temp + O2, the mathian lake would evporate and add to a green house effect, but a moon covered in nateral gas, and others petorian stuff and oxygen warmed up, a little spark could turn Titan into a gaint fir ball, a bad time to be visting Titan, but it would sure raise the temp fast.
Some thing to think about. ???


I love plants!

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#23 2003-10-09 15:23:13

dickbill
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Registered: 2002-09-28
Posts: 749

Re: Mercury Terraformation?

why so much excitation about terraforming Mercury, or even Venus ? They are too close to the sun, there is too much energy radiated there, too dangerous IMO.

Well, my reflection today is that: how do we define a rough terraforming of a gentle one ? Is it more natural to produce perfluorocarbon than to blow up a couple of nuclear bombs under the polar caps of MArs ? The later is definitively a rough and irrespectuous way of terraforming, but in no way more "unnatural" than producing CF4 on Mars, or is it ?

Maybe terraformation, when it uses only the in-situ local resources should be considered natural. In this case, using the local Fluoride, chloride and carbon of Mars to make halocarbons greenhousing gases should be accepted as honorable, even by the "Reds", while putting a mirror in Orbit, being more artificial, would not be acceptable.

Blowing a H2O/ammoniac rich comet in the Martian atmosphere is a very violent process, however perfectly natural...hmmm, I donno...It doesn't matter after all, just terraform and that's it.

A good process for me would be any method, which, even if it doesn't show you the final result in your lifetime, would however show small differences in temperature and pressure, year after year , so that you know that your work is not useless and you can rest in peace.
Like the guys who started building the cathedrals were never the same than those who finished it.

Dickbill the wise.

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#24 2003-10-09 22:53:09

RobS
Banned
From: South Bend, IN
Registered: 2002-01-15
Posts: 1,701
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Re: Mercury Terraformation?

If one heats the exterior of Ganymede to earth-like temperatures by increasing sunlight, no amount of insulation will keep the heat from working its way inside at about a half meter to a meter per year. All you need to do is melt ten meters of ice under your peat and you will have a global flood of water pouring off the higher spots and making oceans on the lower spots. The whole world would melt in a matter of tens of thousands of years.

       -- RobS

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#25 2003-10-10 05:20:52

alokmohan
Member
From: india
Registered: 2003-09-14
Posts: 169

Re: Mercury Terraformation?

Terraforming mercury interests me precisely because it is nearest to sun.

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