Using a planet killer (Comet) to terraform Mars

PhotonBytes · 2025-08-03 12:14:18

The near Mars objects, at what speed will they hit Mars?

The Earth hitting one hit earth at 25 km/s that's why it killed the dinosaurs, the speed did more damage than the size. The near Mars objects won't have nearly the same speed, they can be bigger and still not do much more damage if their slow.

Size matters less than speed in kinetic energy. A musket ball can kill a cow fired by gunpowder but not a golf ball that's bigger but slower.

I did some research on near Mars objects and there are a few big ones with sufficient mass to do the job, but as I said before, their size now solves one problem but creates a new one: how the heck will you nudged it? It's too large to move even by a little. No ice to vaporize to nudge it with a tzar bomb. Fission drives? Good luck with that! Maybe a 20 year old mission , maybe.

The rocks that are small enough to nudge don't do anything for us and the ones big enough to do something are too large to move. Please understand that without ice typically on comets you can't move asteroids unless their too small to help us warm up Mars. Why? Because ice provides the propellant for nukes to push against the rock. Without ice you can only push "pebbles" with fission drives that just stir up a bit of dust on impact with Mars without melting ice caps or erupting volcanoes which is our goal.

Do the numbers your self as I did, you'll come to the same conclusion. Only ice bodies can be moved by our tech effectively and only at aphelion in highly elliptical orbits. I've done my homework!

Void wrote:

It is not important. Should you decide to do an asteroid you could. If you have the means you might do a comet.
The Dinasaur killer was about 10km or 6 miles in diameter, I believe and many of the asteroids that cross both Earth and Mars orbits are maybe 1.5km or 3km, which is much more manageable A big one would mess up existing human structures on Mars. Smaller can be better.
And a cratering event could also be used to uncover the overburden over a mineral deposit.
Yes if you have the means, you can do your comets, but why then should you forbid the asteroids?
Quote:
Carve out a city on one pole? Igloo? Why not melt them both and we get more oceans and build settlements on high elevation areas like the ones you mentioned and mount Olympus?
More water from both ice caps means the longer it will take to evaporate away and more air pressure closer to 1 bar.
Well if you warm the North Pole, and expand the atmosphere, then the Northern Hemisphere might develop a very marginal Troposphere where snowfalls could become normal. But in general, then the high places are where the water will migrate to. I suppose it might be useful to transfer much of the ice from the Northern Hemisphere to the Southern Hemisphere.
Hellas will be an exception as it will develop as much a troposphere or better than will the Northern Hemisphere. The Shield Volcano's also are likely to build ice caps.
There is something rather magical about the Northern Ice cap. If you evaporate it, then there will be seasonal snowpack which may melt in the summer. This would water open air farming, or under dome farming. Also it could fill lakes. In Alaska where you have a sufficient growing season, farming can be rather productive, due to the very long summer days.
Mars seasons are longer.

Last edited by PhotonBytes (2025-08-03 13:18:19)

Void · 2025-08-03 17:27:27

OK, we are not getting anywhere are we.

How about this article: https://www.universetoday.com/articles/ … -asteroids Quote:

Terraforming Mars Will Require Hitting It With Mulitple Asteroids
By Andy Tomaswick - April 7, 2025 at 10:51 AM UTC | Planetary Science

It is actually fairly supportive of your position. I presume you want a pressurization great enough to get rid of spacesuits on the ground, and open bodies of water. I get annoyed when they talk about asteroids but then talk about getting things from the Kuiper Belt or Oort Cloud.

Quote:

[However, after some brief calculations, Dr. Czechowski realized it would take 15,000 years to get a reasonably sized Oort Cloud object near enough to Mars to make a material impact on its atmosphere.
Impact is the optimal word as well, as the model these calculations describe slams the small body into Mars itself, thereby releasing both its material and a large enough of energy that helps warm the planet. Kuiper Belt objects seem the best fit for this, as they contain a lot of water and could theoretically be brought to Mars over decades rather than millennia. However, they are also very unpredictable when brought close to the Sun. They could fall apart, with some of the material going to waste in the inner solar system, especially if the technique used to send them into the inner solar system involves a gravity assist. Such a maneuver could tear apart these relatively loosely held-together balls of ice and rock.
Dr. Czechowski's final conclusion is simple - at least in theory, we can get enough material to dramatically increase Mars' atmospheric pressure to a point where it is tolerable for humans - or at least to a point where they don't die immediately when exposed to it. However, doing so will require us to crash a sizeable icy body from the Kuiper Belt into it. To do that, engineers would need to design a propulsion system that doesn't rely on gravity to direct the icy body. In the conclusion of his paper, Dr. Czechowski suggests a fusion reactor powering an ion engine but doesn't provide many details about what that system would look like.

I am not prepared to wait 15,000 year for the Oort Cloud delivery. Kuiper Belt deliveries look more possible in a shorter time period.

Maybe your nuclear explosion method may have merit, I am not capable of calculating that.

And I wonder if you and I have the same notion of what practical terraforming could be? I am the intruder so can only offer that I think that if a pressure of 10 millibar over the south pole and maybe 2.5 * 9 millibars over the north pole could be achieved, that could be an initial victory. Perhaps 23.5 millibars pressure.

The north polar environment could be sportive of some kind of biosphere of significance. Particularly if plants can be bio formed to be adaptive to that environment.

So, the idea of the "Comets" is to get water and Nitrogen to Mars in large quantities. Mars already has a considerable amount of water. While it would be wonderful to get more Nitrogen, it is not a necessity to achieve what I consider an initial terraform goal.

It remains to be seen if an asteroid with an solar elliptical orbit could punch a hole in the crust of Mars, and if that hole would fill with ground or ice water. The heat from the impact would likely keep hydrothermal water flowing for some time into the lake. Obviously any hope of keeping it from evaporating relies on a ice cover, and perhaps intervention from humans and their robots to cover it with domes.

But then it would help to start a biosphere perhaps.

And eventually in 50 year or 100 years if you could get a comet from the Kuiper belt maybe you could do your thing.

But objects like Ceres, 10 Hygea, and Callisto may very well contain a lot of Ammonia, which if delivered to Mars could alter things. It sounds like far too much work, but if you have robots doing the work, then it is simply unfamiliar not impossible.

But I regret offering what I have offered, it only seems to annoy you. I would prefer to not annoy you and to have not said anything about asteroids.

I apologize and withdraw.

Ending Pending

Last edited by Void (2025-08-03 17:49:25)

PhotonBytes · 2025-08-03 21:13:28

I agree with it, asteroids can help us too but we don't have the means to push on them yet. We do have the means to push on ice objects but only at aphelion.

The article admits that we need to discover new propulsion systems to push on those asteroids.

Your idea is fine in theory but we don't have the technology yet. It's simply too hard to push asteroids now. Comets either from Oort or kuiper belt on the other hand require less waiting on new tech. But unless you push them at aphelion they will be impossible to move too just like the asteroids.

Dr Czechowski:
I disagree that you need to select such a poor candidate that takes 15,000 years to get here , we have already got several comets that nearly already hit Mars or will almost hit it in a few months. Halley's comet only 70 years wait per cycle but it's orbital characteristics don't align well with Mars. I think the other articles about the Dr Czechowski's idea and mine have different methods of using comets to terraform Mars so his selection criteria require really massive comets while mine doesn't because his targeting large bodies to deposit ice, I'm targeting smaller but faster bodies to deposit heat. Mine uses tzar bombs to use the ice as propellant but his uses nuclear powered ion drives that does not. In his case the ice is only useful as payload while ignoring the fact that Mars already has plenty of ice you can melt with the same comet. So he picks comets that can deposit ice to Mars, I select comets because the ice can be used as propellant to push itself with energy cheap methods with the goal of converting it's gravitational potential energy into heat to melt those martian ice caps. In my case the ice bring deposited on mers is a small side benefit or perk. His ignoring the potential use of the ice as propellant and his also ignoring the fact that comets are more valuable heat depositers rather than ice.

He wants comets for ice , I want comets for heat and the ice to me is a means to do that. The comet has 2 valuable resource:

1. Speed (perihelion):

which he doesn't recognize but I do to melt martian ice caps ( ice impact blast)

2. Ice:
In my case useful as propellant to move the main body but in his case to add more ice to Mars that already has plenty.

He wants to add more ice on Mars and I want to melt the ones already there. Mars doesn't need more ice, it needs more heat to melt the existing ice already there.

Void wrote:

OK, we are not getting anywhere are we.
How about this article: https://www.universetoday.com/articles/ … -asteroids Quote:
Terraforming Mars Will Require Hitting It With Mulitple Asteroids
By Andy Tomaswick - April 7, 2025 at 10:51 AM UTC | Planetary Science
It is actually fairly supportive of your position. I presume you want a pressurization great enough to get rid of spacesuits on the ground, and open bodies of water. I get annoyed when they talk about asteroids but then talk about getting things from the Kuiper Belt or Oort Cloud.
Quote:
[However, after some brief calculations, Dr. Czechowski realized it would take 15,000 years to get a reasonably sized Oort Cloud object near enough to Mars to make a material impact on its atmosphere.
Impact is the optimal word as well, as the model these calculations describe slams the small body into Mars itself, thereby releasing both its material and a large enough of energy that helps warm the planet. Kuiper Belt objects seem the best fit for this, as they contain a lot of water and could theoretically be brought to Mars over decades rather than millennia. However, they are also very unpredictable when brought close to the Sun. They could fall apart, with some of the material going to waste in the inner solar system, especially if the technique used to send them into the inner solar system involves a gravity assist. Such a maneuver could tear apart these relatively loosely held-together balls of ice and rock.
Dr. Czechowski's final conclusion is simple - at least in theory, we can get enough material to dramatically increase Mars' atmospheric pressure to a point where it is tolerable for humans - or at least to a point where they don't die immediately when exposed to it. However, doing so will require us to crash a sizeable icy body from the Kuiper Belt into it. To do that, engineers would need to design a propulsion system that doesn't rely on gravity to direct the icy body. In the conclusion of his paper, Dr. Czechowski suggests a fusion reactor powering an ion engine but doesn't provide many details about what that system would look like.
I am not prepared to wait 15,000 year for the Oort Cloud delivery. Kuiper Belt deliveries look more possible in a shorter time period.
Maybe your nuclear explosion method may have merit, I am not capable of calculating that.
And I wonder if you and I have the same notion of what practical terraforming could be? I am the intruder so can only offer that I think that if a pressure of 10 millibar over the south pole and maybe 2.5 * 9 millibars over the north pole could be achieved, that could be an initial victory. Perhaps 23.5 millibars pressure.
The north polar environment could be sportive of some kind of biosphere of significance. Particularly if plants can be bio formed to be adaptive to that environment.
So, the idea of the "Comets" is to get water and Nitrogen to Mars in large quantities. Mars already has a considerable amount of water. While it would be wonderful to get more Nitrogen, it is not a necessity to achieve what I consider an initial terraform goal.
It remains to be seen if an asteroid with an solar elliptical orbit could punch a hole in the crust of Mars, and if that hole would fill with ground or ice water. The heat from the impact would likely keep hydrothermal water flowing for some time into the lake. Obviously any hope of keeping it from evaporating relies on a ice cover, and perhaps intervention from humans and their robots to cover it with domes.
But then it would help to start a biosphere perhaps.
And eventually in 50 year or 100 years if you could get a comet from the Kuiper belt maybe you could do your thing.
But objects like Ceres, 10 Hygea, and Callisto may very well contain a lot of Ammonia, which if delivered to Mars could alter things. It sounds like far too much work, but if you have robots doing the work, then it is simply unfamiliar not impossible.
But I regret offering what I have offered, it only seems to annoy you. I would prefer to not annoy you and to have not said anything about asteroids.
I apologize and withdraw.
Ending Pending

Last edited by PhotonBytes (2025-08-04 03:48:41)

PhotonBytes · 2025-08-04 04:44:31

I missed this response about Dr Czechowski from what you've copy pasted so I'll respond now:

I disagree that you need to select such a poor candidate that takes 15,000 years to get here , we have already got several comets that nearly already hit Mars or will almost hit it in a few months. Halley's comet only 70 years wait per cycle but it's orbital characteristics don't align well with Mars. Dr Czechowski's idea and mine have different methods of using comets to terraform Mars so his selection criteria require really massive comets while mine doesn't because his targeting large bodies to deposit ice, I'm targeting smaller but faster bodies to deposit heat. Mine uses tzar bombs to use the ice as propellant but his uses nuclear powered ion drives that does not. In his case the ice is only useful as payload while ignoring the fact that Mars already has plenty of ice you can melt with the same comet. So he picks comets that can deposit ice to Mars, I select comets for it's speed and because the ice can be used as propellant to push itself with energy cheap methods with the goal of altering it's trajectory to hit Mars and thus converting it's gravitational potential energy into heat to melt martian ice caps. In my case the ice bring deposited on mers is a small side benefit or perk. His ignoring the potential use of the ice as propellant and his also ignoring the fact that comets are more valuable heat depositers rather than ice because their most valuable property is speed(and total kinetic energy at perhelion).

He wants comets for ice , I want comets for speed/kinetic energy (and the resulting heat on impact with Mars) the ice on the comet to me is a means to do that. The comet has 2 valuable resource:

1. Speed(perihelion):

As trapped heat energy in the form of kinetic energy which he doesn't recognize but I do: to melt martian ice caps ( ice impact blast)

2. Ice:
In my case useful as propellant to move the comet body to alter it's trajectory to hit Mars but in his case to add more ice to Mars that already has plenty.

He wants to add more ice on Mars and I want to melt the ones already there. Mars doesn't need more ice, it needs more heat to melt the existing ice already there in the caps

Last edited by PhotonBytes (2025-08-04 23:46:09)

PhotonBytes · 2025-08-04 23:46:28

Regarding using asteroids with large quantities of useful gasses such as ammonia or nitrogen etc. Their useful only because they remain as gas in current frigid Martian temperatures. I prefer to alter Martian temperatures instead to accommodate the material ice already there and melt them into liquid and gas. Instead of transfering ammonia/nitrogen I prefer to transfer heat instead. The kinetic energy of high speed comets can transfer heat and raise Martian temperatures so that the ice in the caps melt and turn into liquid and gas you're trying to deposit there.

Why add gasses that stay as gas in the cold when you can just turn up the heat instead and the stuff already there(water and dry ice) turn into liquid and gas anyway. You don't need new stuff , you need higher temperatures. Useful stuff all already there for higher temperatures. The only new stuff needed is heat.

I get it's not so obvious, moving a comet to transfer heat. Very counter intuitive that ice can create heat on impact. But this is why it has to be from the Oort or kuiper belt or else the potential energy simply isn't there for speed. Again massive asteroids can do it too but we can't move them because, well... Their massive!

Small asteroids will need to be as fast as comets to do the same job but then you might as well use comets because you can't move them without ice (as propellant) at aphelion. Assuming highly elliptical orbits.

Highly Elliptical Orbits(Of Halley's comet):

Eccentricity(0.967, 0 being a perfect circle):

Without highly elliptical orbits you don't have a hope to nudge any celestial body within current human technology limits within a practical timeframe. The more elongated/eccentric it is the more extreme the aphelion vs perihelion is and the slower and faster it is at those nodes respectively. Slower at aphelion and faster at perihelion. The more eccentric the orbit the more easily we can leverage a slower body to go where we want at a faster speed.

Aphelion(0.9km/s):

You need that very slow aphelion so you can fine tune and alter trajectory of these floating mountains while their slowest at speeds typical of aircraft on Earth. Halley's comet's aphelion is 900m/s or mach 3! SR-71 blackbird ( fastest aircraft) so in Halley's case the fastest jet on Earth. But that's it's slowest point and our chance to change it's trajectory. Although not useful for Mars it could conceivably by altered to hit Venus or the sun.

Perihelion(54.6km/s):

You also then need that very fast perihelion so it can scream down at high speeds with the energy of the dinosaur killer and impact whatever it usually near misses on its way down from aphelion towards the inner planets and sun. In our case Mars.

Cannon ball analogy:

Think of it as smacking a cannon ball with your hand(perhaps from a hot air balloon or the leaning tower of pisa) when its at the top of it's ballistic trajectory and hoping it will hit someone else. This will only work if the trajectory is mostly vertical and only slightly horizontal. That's what a highly elliptical orbit is like in space. Aphelion is where we smack the comet with "our hand" (tzar bombs) hoping it will hit Mars. Because aphelion is where it's slowest: it has the lowest momentum there. Thus allowing it to be more easily perturbed by small external forces. To have it's trajectory significantly altered by such.

Last edited by PhotonBytes (2025-08-05 10:00:56)

Void · 2025-08-05 08:18:31

I call gasses that do not condense, "Carrier Gasses". Nitrogen and Argon are in that category on Mars. On Earth, in addition, both CO2 and O2 are also "Carrier Gasses". They Carry heat from warm places to colder places while mostly not condensing. So, yes if you warm Mars enough, then CO2 becomes a "Carrier Gas" on Mars. If we could release lots of O2 from water to the Mars atmosphere, we could increase the carrier gas, and so in that case the Mars atmosphere becoming thicker, could help to move heat from the warmer places to the colder places, and so help to keep CO2 warm above the condensation point. A situation I have concern over in such a case, lets say the Mars atmosphere becoming 1/2 what it is now with a matching content of O2, may be the production of large amounts of CO.

But an atmosphere with lots of O2 and CO would be a potential energy source. But microbes might consume these substances and produce CO2.

The value of greenhouse gasses and particle method heating are that they will warm the cold areas more than they will warm warmer areas.

So, impactor energy would be conserved to a best purpose, if you also used greenhouse gasses and particle method heating. You may have missed what I indicate by particle method heating.

https://news.uchicago.edu/story/scienti … -warm-mars
Quote:

Scientists lay out revolutionary method to warm Mars
UChicago, Northwestern study suggests new approach to warm Mars could be 5,000 times more efficient than previous proposals

Another way to warm Mars and produce Oxygen to add to the atmosphere would be to expose ice from under dirt, or slam an icy object(s) into the planet, or pump water vapor out of "Smokestacks".
https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2101959118
Quote:

Warm early Mars surface enabled by high-altitude water ice clouds
Edwin S. Kite https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1426-1186 kite@uchicago.edu, Liam J. Steele https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6611-0179, Michael A. Mischna https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8022-5319, and Mark I. Richardson https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9633-4141Authors Info & Affiliations
Edited by Mark Thiemens, University of California San Diego, La Jolla, CA, and approved March 10, 2021 (received for review February 4, 2021)
April 26, 2021
118 (18) e2101959118
https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2101959118

So, the way to have this favorable condition of high-altitude water clouds, is to have just the right amount of exposed ice or water on the surface of Mars. Currently it has too little exposed ice/water.

But Mars does have ice fogs on occasion, and so in the nighttime the moisture in the higher atmosphere appears to drop downward.

If you had steam turbines that could work with an inner loop of clean water, that is cooled by evaporating less clean water, you could expel the steam to atmosphere, and I speculate that you could use microwave beams to cause the vapor stream to rise up to the high altitudes. Further using microwaves might allow the Natural UV so to split the H20 into Oxygen and Hydrogen. The Hydrogen would drift off, and you would have in increase of the "Carrier Gas" Oxygen.

The import of Nitrogen, perhaps from Comets would be additional useful.

So, a combination of methods would most likely be more productive than just impactors. At least I speculate that is will turn out to be so.

Ending Pending

Last edited by Void (2025-08-05 08:38:31)

PhotonBytes · 2025-08-05 13:18:31

This interstellar object will have a close fly by of Mars this October 3rd. We could have nudged it to hit Mars releasing energy of almost twice that of the dinosaur killing rock that hit us millions of years ago. It would have reinvigorated all the volcanoes on Mars like angry pimples and melted both ice caps as a result. Problem solved!

Surfs up!

P.S
It's not the first close call and won't be the last, Mars is more exposed and vulnerable than Earth to these comet fly bys. There's time to try this again.

3I/ATLAS
https://edition.cnn.com/2025/07/03/scie … t-3i-atlas

Trajectory
https://media.cnn.com/api/v1/images/ste … ill/f_webp

Void wrote:

I call gasses that do not condense, "Carrier Gasses". Nitrogen and Argon are in that category on Mars. On Earth, in addition, both CO2 and O2 are also "Carrier Gasses". They Carry heat from warm places to colder places while mostly not condensing. So, yes if you warm Mars enough, then CO2 becomes a "Carrier Gas" on Mars. If we could release lots of O2 from water to the Mars atmosphere, we could increase the carrier gas, and so in that case the Mars atmosphere becoming thicker, could help to move heat from the warmer places to the colder places, and so help to keep CO2 warm above the condensation point. A situation I have concern over in such a case, lets say the Mars atmosphere becoming 1/2 what it is now with a matching content of O2, may be the production of large amounts of CO.
But an atmosphere with lots of O2 and CO would be a potential energy source. But microbes might consume these substances and produce CO2.
The value of greenhouse gasses and particle method heating are that they will warm the cold areas more than they will warm warmer areas.
So, impactor energy would be conserved to a best purpose, if you also used greenhouse gasses and particle method heating. You may have missed what I indicate by particle method heating.
https://news.uchicago.edu/story/scienti … -warm-mars
Quote:
Scientists lay out revolutionary method to warm Mars
UChicago, Northwestern study suggests new approach to warm Mars could be 5,000 times more efficient than previous proposals
Another way to warm Mars and produce Oxygen to add to the atmosphere would be to expose ice from under dirt, or slam an icy object(s) into the planet, or pump water vapor out of "Smokestacks".
https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2101959118
Quote:
Warm early Mars surface enabled by high-altitude water ice clouds
Edwin S. Kite https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1426-1186 kite@uchicago.edu, Liam J. Steele https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6611-0179, Michael A. Mischna https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8022-5319, and Mark I. Richardson https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9633-4141Authors Info & Affiliations
Edited by Mark Thiemens, University of California San Diego, La Jolla, CA, and approved March 10, 2021 (received for review February 4, 2021)
April 26, 2021
118 (18) e2101959118
https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2101959118
So, the way to have this favorable condition of high-altitude water clouds, is to have just the right amount of exposed ice or water on the surface of Mars. Currently it has too little exposed ice/water.
But Mars does have ice fogs on occasion, and so in the nighttime the moisture in the higher atmosphere appears to drop downward.
If you had steam turbines that could work with an inner loop of clean water, that is cooled by evaporating less clean water, you could expel the steam to atmosphere, and I speculate that you could use microwave beams to cause the vapor stream to rise up to the high altitudes. Further using microwaves might allow the Natural UV so to split the H20 into Oxygen and Hydrogen. The Hydrogen would drift off, and you would have in increase of the "Carrier Gas" Oxygen.
The import of Nitrogen, perhaps from Comets would be additional useful.
So, a combination of methods would most likely be more productive than just impactors. At least I speculate that is will turn out to be so.
Ending Pending

Last edited by PhotonBytes (2025-08-05 13:52:19)

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