Adding mass to Mars - An idea to stop loosing atmosphere

Tb0ne · 2005-01-30 04:27:58

Assuming Mars is terraformed in the "increase density of atmosphere and tempurature" way.. there would still be the problem of Mars most likely loosing atmosphere over time and reverting back to its natural state.

Could this be stopped? depending on how long it would take to loose the atmosphere there could be an option that I havn't seen mentioned before. If there was time I would think such a Human civilization (just think, its capable of terraforming a planet, no easy task) would add mass to Mars. Imagine ships bringing Iron/Metal heavy comets near Mars to be broken down into small box, and shipped via space cable(s) to the planets surface. Scatter them or bury them evenly spaced in deep holes around the planet. Use Phobos and or Demos for extra mass if needed as well.

In a process of loss that would take normally generations to complete, this process would be fought until it reached a signicant mass, however long it took.

Tb0ne · 2005-01-30 04:57:50

As for Europa, how about taking mass from another of Jupiters moons and dumping it onto the planet, into holes bored in the surface by giant machines. These materials would be mined by automated robots (again this is in the far far far future), at the same time once more mass was added robots would collect gasses from Jupiter itself.

Are there enough moons to provide the mass needed? something for someone to check out.

Pending first checking to see if life exists there of course.

Shaun Barrett · 2005-01-30 06:46:59

Hi TbOne and welcome to New Mars.
It certainly would have been better for us terraformers if Mars had been born with significantly more mass than it has. It's such a pity that Venus wasn't formed in Mars' orbit and vice-versa!

But, unfortunately, Mars has a relatively low mass and has lost significant quantities of its original volatiles to space as a result; a low nitrogen inventory being one of the main worries, in my opinion.

The good news, however, is that Mars has enough pull to hold onto a new atmosphere for a significant period of time. I've seen reference to calculations which suggest a newly created Martian atmosphere would last on the order of 100 million years - not very long by geological standards, but effectively an eternity by human standards.
We really don't have to concern ourselves with losing a newly created Martian atmosphere, we have to concentrate on actually creating one.

Just addressing your idea of adding mass to Mars, although it's not theoretically impossible, it doesn't seem practicable to me.
To place the problem in perspective, suppose you could steer Ceres (the largest asteroid in the Asteroid Belt with a diameter of 1000 kilometres) into Martian orbit, dismantle it, and transport it down to the surface.
In order just to double Mars' mass, you'd have to find and utilise over 700 asteroids of the same mass as Ceres to do it!
Even after doubling Mars' mass, it would still be only about 20% of Earth's mass. And, assuming the material you import to bring about that doubling in mass has the same average density as Mars does today (3900 kg/cu.m), the extra material will increase Mars' radius by about 26%. This means you won't get a doubling of the surface gravitational acceleration for your money because your new surface is farther from the planetary centre of gravity.
I calculate you'd end up with a surface gravity of about 0.48g instead of the present value of 0.38g.

A lot of hard work for a relatively modest increase in gravity - especially when, from an atmospheric retention point of view, it's not really necessary.

dickbill · 2005-01-30 13:28:18

But adding mass to Mars atmosphere is a prerequisite for terraforming in order to achieve pressure and temperature-buffering, including, if possible, gas with green housing effects. We know the gas Mars needs most : NH3, because as you said Shaun, Mars is depleted in nitrogen. It matters litttle if nitrogen is imported under N2 or NH3 form, they can both be biologically interconverted later. But NH3 is far superior to N2 in terms of green housing effect and present in good amount in comets, so it's perfect. The other volatils like H2O CH4 and heavyer organics like aldehydes cyanides, even amino acids are also presents in comets, but matter little, IMO, in any terraformnation attempt since they can be synthetized biologically, in situ, on Mars or are already present.
So the first step is really thickening the Mars atmosphere.
This is well described in the Zubrin's "case for Mars" or the KSR trilogy.

I don't think it's reallistic to build huge mirrors in orbit to heat and volatilize the polar caps, or even, As I have suggested before (but that was more like one of my jokes) to install huge microwaves emitters on Mars moon to "cook" Mars.
And the chemical synthesis of fluorocarbons in-situ on Mars...yes, they have a formidable greenhousing power and everything is there on Mars but, how do you do that, in practice ? Granted, you can install a small reactor and bring to it, (by hand ? that's an astronaut full time job) the fluoride from minerals and synthetise a couple of tons of CF4...not significative to have any effects. More for the far future maybe...

I really think droppping comets in the Mars atmosphere is the way to go and quite reallistically possible even in today's technology.

Tb0ne · 2005-01-30 18:31:20

Thank you both for your comments!

What if the holes the material were inserted into went to a suffient depth, would this help at all?

How much mass would deconstructing Phobos and Demos add to Mars?

As for the Europa idea, could this work? For some reason this almost seems like it would be easier to add mass to, considering how many other Moons could be used for raw materials.
Would adding mass to Europa put it in danger of being pulled into Jupiter?

Commodore · 2005-01-30 20:03:41

As for the Europa idea, could this work? For some reason this almost seems like it would be easier to add mass to, considering how many other Moons could be used for raw materials.
Would adding mass to Europa put it in danger of being pulled into Jupiter?

Probably not very far.

Though I'm not sure how effective terraforming Europa would be. I would imagine it to be far more effective to just melt holes in the ice and live submerged in the ocean, either on the ocean floor or suspended at some depth.

Theres no better protection from Jupiters magnetosphere than all that water.

Earthfirst · 2005-01-31 10:30:37

The way to add mass is with a very condensed formed found in nuetron stars, it would take up a small volume yet add the mass of earth to mars. I think the average size of a nuetron star is 20 by 20 mile a perfect sphere. Yet has the mass of many suns and lots of gravity. Nuetron stars would be a good source a matter for the construction of wormwholes, because you need the mass of Sol to get one started. We could make our own nuetron matter with partical smashers, by breaking up He and storing the resulting nuetrons.
By adding nuetron matter to any smaller body than the Earth you could easly increase its mass and gravity. Until artifisal gravity develop this would be the best way to increase mass of object while taking by a small volume. For object to small to hold onto atmospheres, increasing their mass could be the first step in terrafroming. Or more simple make a world house around the object "Tent" paraform. This would work well for the moon of Sol 3a.

karov · 2005-02-01 06:44:05

More than 80% of the matter in our Universe should consist of cold WIMPs, according to the most recent astronomical observations the best possible candidate is the neutralino - the SUSY partner, aka sparticle of the Z bozon, photon and the neutral higgs:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neutralino … Neutralino

it seems very good candidate also in future to be used as balast weakly interacting mass for thickening planets, stars, etc. astroengineering works...

BTW, this enormous amount of strange dark matter could be in principle converted in normal matter using comperatively small artificial black holes as mass-energy mills...

Shaun Barrett · 2005-02-02 05:12:47

Hi Karov.
How much do we know about the characteristics of these WIMPs? I know that they're Weakly-Interacting Massive Particles, so they have mass, of course, but can they be transported easily?
They're 'dark matter', so presumably they don't respond to electro-magnetism very well. How do we know our hands and machinery wouldn't pass straight through them, since the essence of mechanical force is electro-magnetic interaction?
???
Or am I completely off-base here?!
[P.S. I couldn't seem to make your link work - it's probably a fault at my end. ]

karov · 2005-02-02 11:41:05

Hi Karov.
How much do we know about the characteristics of these WIMPs? I know that they're Weakly-Interacting Massive Particles, so they have mass, of course, but can they be transported easily?
They're 'dark matter', so presumably they don't respond to electro-magnetism very well. How do we know our hands and machinery wouldn't pass straight through them, since the essence of mechanical force is electro-magnetic interaction?
???
Or am I completely off-base here?!
[P.S. I couldn't seem to make your link work - it's probably a fault at my end. ]

Hi Shaun,

Try http://www.wikipedia.com]www.wikipedia.com and than search for neutralino. We don`t know much yet, about these sparticles, they are consequence/prediction of SUSY teories and their existence could be proved by CERN in 2007...

Yes, electrmagnetically we can not deal with them. May be in very distant future using space-time swirls around artificial small black holes or else...

I personaly don`t like the idea planets like mars to be crampled with dark matter for increasing the surface gravity, but -- increasing the masses of some colder stars to light them up, using darmat condensates as shell worlds anchors. Finally using small black holes mass/energy mills to turn the neutralinos in energy... The dark matter prevalence causes some negative emotional reaction on first glance but indeed this is enormous stockpile of energy.

Shaun Barrett · 2005-02-02 17:56:17

Interesting stuff!
Thanks, Karov.

karov · 2005-02-03 04:59:42

Shaun, this:

"Neutralino" from wikipedia:
==============================================
In particle physics, the neutralino is a hypothetical particle and part of the doubling of the menagerie of particles predicted by
supersymmetric theories.

Since the superpartners of the Z boson (zino), the photon (photino)
and the neutral higgs (higgsino) have the same quantum numbers, they
mix to form a particle called simply the neutralino. Virtually
undetectable, it participates only in weak and gravitational
interactions. Of the weakly-interacting massive particles (WIMPs)
under consideration, the neutralino, as the lightest electrically
neutral supersymmetric particle (at 30-5000 proton masses), is the
leading candidate for cold dark matter.

==============================================
From: http://www.spacedaily.com/news/darkmatt … r-05c.html

"Ghostly haloes of dark matter as heavy as the earth and as large as
our solar system were the first structures to form in the universe,
according to new calculations from scientists at the University of
Zurich, published in last week's issue of Nature.
Our own galaxy still contains quadrillions of these halos with one
expected to pass by Earth every few thousand years, leaving a bright,
detectable trail of gamma rays in its wake, the scientists say. Day
to day, countless random dark matter particles rain down upon the
Earth and through our bodies undetected."

That means the available earth-mass condensates of neutralino if they
exist at all should not be so much far away in the frame of circum-solar space, HENCE they are so logical, than
anavoidable sourse of mass/energy. If so compact, targeted with
artificial mini-black holes and wormholes, they shall be used for:

increasing the masses of some colder stars to light them up, using
darmat condensates as shell worlds anchors. Finally using small black
holes mass/energy mills to turn the neutralinos in energy... The dark
matter prevalence causes some negative emotional reaction on first
glance but indeed this is enormous stockpile of energy.

UNUIVERSAL SOURSE OF GRAVITY, mass, energy... The mass/energy symetry
implies that these many times bigger amounts of mass can be turned
easily in light matter. Why to annihilate usefull barionic matter in
when you have such plenty of non-barionic garbage?

If someone wants to built Paul Burch supramundane planets why to use precious barionic matter for the gravity well, instead of producing it out of darmat and keeping the litmat for the terraformed shell. If you want to built black hole or wormhole why to dismantle ready good stars instead of crumple some darmat in unde Swarzshield radius? Etc...

A little black hole fed continuously with darmat ( balansing exactly the furious Hawking radiation output with the darmat input -- in orde the mini=hole to not evaporate, or the same achieved by exactly formating the size of the balck hole to match the density of an natural nearby darmat halo of these many trillions in order to have stabile star-like configuration...) will produce enormous quantity of radiation -- far better industrial sourse of energy than any natural fusor.

It seems to me that neutralinos` universe`s reserves ( or any other darmat as it will occur to b in existence form) and they conversion in electromagnetic radiation and ordinary matter will be the ultimate supply for Kardashev Type III + civilization of both harware and energy to run it.

Black hole darmat mass/energy mill should be something like this:

Artificial microscopic black hole with mass of just several metric tonnes with hawking luminocity equaling the Sun`s of ~3 x 10exp26 Watts, continously injected with 3-4 millions of tonnes of darmat per second in order to prevent its evaporation, i.e. keeping its mass/hawking luminosity. Compared with the Sun with its ~2 X 10exp30 kg of mass for the same energy output, and much more abundant and cheap fuel used-- this is the best and ultimate reactor. BTW, such small hole will emit not only EM radiation, but the full coctail of particles excited into existence by the shear energy density, so it will blow out in exchange of the input darmat mass, any kind of necesarry particles for construction purposes. One earth mass neutralino halo will be sufficient to ensure the sol-equivalent of luminocity for at least 62 MILLIONS OF YEARS!!! If these haloes are indeed quadrillions in the Milky way itself, hense at least 1000 times more common than the stars, i.e. at least 10 times more closer than the nearest star, than in closer than 4 ly from here there is ultimate_reactor fuel for many billions of years...
Using bigger mini-black holes will give us lower point output...

srmeaney · 2005-03-22 16:02:39

Considering the Existance of the Asteroid belt, Perhaps Automated Tugs deployed to push a selection of smaller rocks into Mars to trigger volcanic activity. We could test a de-orbit burn on Diemos. Try to achieve a polar orbit that passes through the atmosphere above the poles. Short of that I suggest a small black hole in the planet core. It will probably give us Thermal convection in the core, generate a nuclear magnetic field. We might even wind up with a Magnetic field for the planet.

The problem is this: Do we really want to increase Martian Gravity? There are benifits to Lower Gravity Planets. Most important is the ability to build big space ships and launch on less fuel. Mars would offer us the opportunity to apply technology that would never work on earth due to the difference in gravity. Could we grow crystal buildings?

RickSmith · 2007-06-30 22:53:29

Hi Karov, everyone.
I think if we have the technology to do the thing you are talking about in the "Micro Black Hole being fed Dark Matter" post we would have the energy to move millions of Kuniper Belt objects on to Mars and increase its gravity the old fashioned way.

Furthermore many of the points in that post are very speculative. I have sneaking doubts about dark matter in general (I suspect it may turn out to be something like lumious ether). We don't know if micro black holes can exit or if they will radiate Hawking's Radiation like we hope. Nor do we know if super symmetery works.

The post on neutronium seems to me to be more possible. Keep adding mass to a Boise - Einstein Condensate until it approaches neutronium level density. De orbit it and let it sink to the center of Mars.

I have no idea if such a thing would be stable or safe. As mass compresses around it it would likely stir up a major amount of vulanism (which generally would be a good thing).

In any case, we know how to build Boise - Einstein Condensate and it does not require exotic physics that we are unsure will work.

Warm regards, Rick.

m1omg · 2007-07-06 04:30:16

http://www.transhuman.talktalk.net/iw/Geosync.htm
It is sufficient to hold atmosphere and ionosphere will protect the atmosphere if it is sufficiently thick.
I suppose we should not worry.

noosfractal · 2007-07-06 05:43:27

It is sufficient to hold atmosphere and ionosphere will protect the atmosphere if it is sufficiently thick.
I suppose we should not worry.

But Mars is a counterexample to your theory. It did have a thick atmosphere and its ionosphere did not protect it.

The ionosphere isn't something magic. It is just gas atoms with electrons stripped away. Without the magnetic field, they just blow away like normal gas atoms. With the magnetic field, they are directed along the field lines and kept close to the planet.

It is the magnetic field that is important. If you have an atmosphere with a magnetic field, the solar wind will soon create an ionosphere. But not vice versa.

m1omg · 2007-07-06 05:58:13

It is sufficient to hold atmosphere and ionosphere will protect the atmosphere if it is sufficiently thick.
I suppose we should not worry.
But Mars is a counterexample to your theory. It did have a thick atmosphere and its ionosphere did not protect it.
The ionosphere isn't something magic. It is just gas atoms with electrons stripped away. Without the magnetic field, they just blow away like normal gas atoms. With the magnetic field, they are directed along the field lines and kept close to the planet.
It is the magnetic field that is important. If you have an atmosphere with a magnetic field, the solar wind will soon create an ionosphere. But not vice versa.

Not enough thick.
0.07 bar is thin and insufficient.

m1omg · 2007-07-06 06:01:49

It is sufficient to hold atmosphere and ionosphere will protect the atmosphere if it is sufficiently thick.
I suppose we should not worry.
But Mars is a counterexample to your theory. It did have a thick atmosphere and its ionosphere did not protect it.
The ionosphere isn't something magic. It is just gas atoms with electrons stripped away. Without the magnetic field, they just blow away like normal gas atoms. With the magnetic field, they are directed along the field lines and kept close to the planet.
It is the magnetic field that is important. If you have an atmosphere with a magnetic field, the solar wind will soon create an ionosphere. But not vice versa.

Venus is another case and example.
And it do not have any magnetic field.

noosfractal · 2007-07-06 06:36:39

Not enough thick.
0.07 bar is thin and insufficient.

Current theory says that Mars used to have 2-3 bars of atmosphere. The ionosphere didn't stop it being lost ...

Mars’ volatile and climate history, Nature, July 2001
http://ltpwww.gsfc.nasa.gov/tharsis/jak … nsight.pdf

noosfractal · 2007-07-06 06:41:18

Venus is another case and example.
And it do not have any magnetic field.

But it has a 90 bar atmosphere! And even so, most of the lighter elements have been lost (hydrogen, helium, nitrogen, oxygen). Now only CO2 is left.

Why didn't the ionosphere stop the lighter gas molecules being lost?

m1omg · 2007-07-06 08:01:53

Venus is another case and example.
And it do not have any magnetic field.
But it has a 90 bar atmosphere! And even so, most of the lighter elements have been lost (hydrogen, helium, nitrogen, oxygen). Now only CO2 is left.
Why didn't the ionosphere stop the lighter gas molecules being lost?

Nitrogen is more abundant on Venus than on Earth.
And hydrogen escaped because the water boiled and was photodissociated by UV rays in the upper atmosphere.
That will happen to Earth 1.6 billion years in the future.
And hydrogen will escape.

Oxygen and remaining hydrogen recombined with volcanic SO2 into H2SO4.

noosfractal · 2007-07-06 08:32:36

Nitrogen is more abundant on Venus than on Earth.

Not proportionately - Venus atmosphere is ~96.5% CO2

Do you believe thermodynamic loss ...

http://cseligman.com/text/planets/retention.htm

... is a factor at all in atmospheric retention?

m1omg · 2007-07-06 10:35:02

Nitrogen is more abundant on Venus than on Earth.
Not proportionately - Venus atmosphere is ~96.5% CO2
Do you believe thermodynamic loss ...
http://cseligman.com/text/planets/retention.htm
... is a factor at all in atmospheric retention?

It is.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atmosphere_of_Venus
The amount of nitrogen in the Venus's atmosphere is about 4x that of Earth.
And buildup of CO2 is here because there are no carbon sinks and no carbonate rocks - all sublimated.
If you will sublime all these rocks on Earth, you will get the same atmosphere.
Yes, it is.

Read something about runaway greenhouse atmospheres.
That thing has absolutely nothing with mag. field.
And we have no hydrogen on Earth, but WATER which is a lot heavier molecule.
On Venus the water was lost by photochemical processes.

m1omg · 2007-07-06 10:38:38

The whole "hydrogen retention" thing is a nonsense.
If all life suddenly disappeared and temperature has risen to 70 degress, all water will evaporate and warm up planet to more than 100 degress to be photolysed it a few million years in the upper atmosphere by UV light.
Hydrogen will escape, deuterium will stay and released oxygen will recombine with volcanic acidic gases to form H2SO4 and HCl.
The CO2 will be released from the boiling oceans and cause more warming until the limestone will not became quicklime and release all these enormous amounts of CO2 what was trapped in it, warming the planet to Venuslike temperatures.
That is exactly what happened to Venus.

Wikipedia on that;
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atmospheri … s_on_Earth

Earth’s magnetic field protects it from solar winds and prevents escape of ions, except at open field lines in the poles. Earth’s mass, increasing gravitational attraction, prevents other non-thermal loss processes from appreciably depleting the atmosphere. Yet Earth’s atmosphere is two order of magnitude less dense than that of Venus at the surface. Because of the temperature regime of Earth, CO2 and H2O are sequestered in the hydrosphere and lithosphere. H2O vapor is sequestered as liquid H2O in oceans, greatly decreasing the atmospheric density. With liquid water running over the surface of Earth, CO2 can be drawn down from the atmosphere and sequestered in sedimentary rocks. Some estimates indicate that carbon is trapped in sedimentary rocks, with the atmospheric portion being approximately 1/250,000 of Earth’s CO2 reservoir. If both of the reservoirs were in released in the atmosphere, Earth’s atmosphere would be more dense than even Venus’s atmosphere. Therefore, the dominant “loss” mechanism of Earth’s atmosphere is not escape to space, but sequestration.

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Re: Adding mass to Mars - An idea to stop loosing atmosphere

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