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Void

Member

Registered: 2011-12-29

Posts: 7,815

Re: Re-starting the Martian core

I have no authority in the matter, but I have  a hunch-feeling, that certain theories have become dogma, as either insufficient data has been observed or processed, and also extreme news verbalizations impress the human flocks of minds.

Two possible dogma's are that magnetic fields are the entire or maximum factor about atmospheric losses, and that Venus is presumed to have had oceans in it's past.

A recent factor that has been put forward is the energy of formation impacts for terrestrial planets.  The closer to the sun a planet was, the more energy in the impacts.

Mercury seems to have somehow lost its lighter elements from its crust to some extent.  I think answers as to why are not yet sufficiently available.

The theory indicates that Venus was heated up much more than the Earth by formation impacts, and the theory asks if Venus ever was cool enough to allow water to condense on its surface.  In a condition like that the retention of Hydrogen would be difficult.  In fact the impression I have now is that the situation on Venus as per Hydrogen retention is unstable.  I have wondered if the Hydrogen still comes from the interior of Venus, or if it comes from the Solar wind.

Then Earth is supposed to have cooled at some point, enough for the pooling of Hydrogen in water, and with a dry upper atmosphere, perhaps retaining the Hydrogen of water.

In the case of Mars, the energy of impact formation would be less as Mars is not as deep in the sun's gravity well.  The latest theory about a warm early Mars suggests that it was a Hycean planet for a short while. 
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hycean_planet

I had a large amount of Hydrogen in its atmosphere and did then loose that.

The Hydrogen would eventually have drifted off or been absorbed into the crust and ices of the crust.

So although a magnetic field might have influence, even the Earth cannot retain Hydrogen well in it's uppermost atmosphere.

Mars, then having less origination heat from materials traveling in the sun's gravity well, did not retain sufficient volcanism and tectonic activities to keep a strong atmosphere.

In the case of the Earth, tectonic plates keep moving radioactive materials to the core to come together like a nuclear reactor.  On Mars it may be that those elements are retained higher up and the core never got loaded up with radioactive materials as much as Earth.

It now appears that Supernova keep sending new radioactive materials to the planets: https://phys.org/news/2023-02-radioacti … rnova.html

So, for Earth this stuff keeps being tucked down into its core, perhaps, but for Mars it does not, as far as can be understood.

For Venus, we don't know.  It may have something like tectonics, or maybe big patches of the crust melt entirely and allow the heavy elements to settle out into the core.

For Mercury we don't think tectonics exists, so I would expect that the heavy elements do not go to the core.

Theories that also account for atmosphere are about the nature of major collisions in the past.  Some can knock atmosphere off, depending on angle of impact and size of impactor.

That is explained to some extent here: https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.3 … 357/ab9810

So, even if the core could be restarted, my thinking is that it might not do that much for Mars anyway.

The existing atmosphere can provide some radiation protection and if all the Dry Ice could be kept as vapor in the atmosphere, the protection from radiation would be much better.

So, a magnetic field also being advertised as radiation protecting is not all that necessary I think.

I am not against the notion of creating a magnetic field for Mars, but my primary objective would be to make it leaky so that the solar wind could impact the sunward side of the atmosphere, and yet the field would prohibit a tail of lost atoms from the planet.  This might add back Hydrogen which would perhaps warm the planet up a bit.  But of course, you would need to actively add Oxygen from crust materials to keep the entire atmosphere from being absorbed into water ice and crust rocks.

Done.

Last edited by Void (2023-06-28 10:52:47)

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Mars_B4_Moon

Member

Registered: 2006-03-23

Posts: 9,776

Re: Re-starting the Martian core

Iron atoms discovered on the move in Earth's solid inner core

https://www.spacedaily.com/reports/Iron … e_999.html

Mars_B4_Moon

Member

Registered: 2006-03-23

Posts: 9,776

Re: Re-starting the Martian core

Mars hides a core of molten iron deep inside. A layer of molten rock above the core led to confusing seismic signals.

https://arstechnica.com/science/2023/10 … ep-inside/

Mars_B4_Moon

Member

Registered: 2006-03-23

Posts: 9,776

Re: Re-starting the Martian core

Earth's magnetic field protects life on Earth from radiation
https://www.spacedaily.com/reports/Eart … n_999.html

Mars_B4_Moon

Member

Registered: 2006-03-23

Posts: 9,776

Re: Re-starting the Martian core

Not restarting the core but...

dig down and put wires in the ground

How to create an artificial magnetosphere for Mars and fire stuff at Mars to create a ring around it,  an artificial ring or a belt of charged particles

'How to create an artificial magnetosphere for Mars'
https://web.archive.org/web/20211116045 … .06887.pdf

or space stations?

The principle of a plasma torus with current drive that produces a resultant magnetic field. Charged particles are directed between a series of space stations that guide the particles to form the current loop.

The optimum solution proposed is completely novel, although inspired by natural situations and fusion plasma techniques. The solution with the lowest power, assembly and mass is to create an artificial charged particle ring (similar in form to a ‘radiation belt’), around the planet possibly formed by ejecting matter from one of the moons of Mars (in fashion similar to that that forms the Io-Jupiter plasma torus), but using electromagnetic and plasma waves to drive a net current in the ring(s) that results in an overall magnetic field.

QUOTE

The Earth’s magnetic field that originates within the iron core from a dynamo process, encompasses the planet and extends out into the near space environment (see Figure 1). The magnetic field helps to reduce the radiation reaching the surface by re-directing and shielding large numbers of energetic solar particles that would otherwise create a radiation hazard to life. Another important benefit of the Earth’s magnetic field is that it inhibits the loss of atmospheric molecules from pick-up by the
solar wind during large solar superstorms

The primary technical challenge in creating a magnetosphere for Mars is not the strength of the magnetic field but the vast size of the magnetic field needed to encompass an object as large as a whole planet.
To first order, for a magnetic field in the path of a flowing plasma (like the solar wind), a stand-off
will occur approximately where the magnetic field pressure PB balances the pressure of the solar wind
plasma, Psw1. For planetary magnetospheres, this distance Rs is sometimes called the Chapman- Ferraro distance in reference to those that first proposed it .
R6S ∼ B2o / 2μoPsw .R6o
Here R0 is the radius of the magnetic field generating structure (iron core, or current/magneticloop).
For Earth, the magnetopause distance ranges from about 5 to 15 Earth radii depending upon conditions. For Mars, without an intrinsic magnetic field, an induced magnetosphere is created close to the planet or in the ionosphere

The solar wind pressure is usually in the range ∼1 to 10 nPa (1−10×10−9N m−2) at Earth making the magnetic field intensity (BS) necessary to balance the solar wind ram pressure of ∼50-200 nT. This is using magnetic field pressure PB = B2 S /2μ0, where μ0 is the permeability of free-space. At the orbit of Mars this would be ∼40-150nT.

Last edited by Mars_B4_Moon (2023-12-27 11:53:26)

Mars_B4_Moon

Member

Registered: 2006-03-23

Posts: 9,776

Re: Re-starting the Martian core

Earth Had a Magnetosphere 3.7 Billion Years Ago

https://www.universetoday.com/166811/ea … years-ago/