Can a (possibly) tectonically dead planet like Mars, be terraformed?

Question

Is the tectonic cycle part of what makes life here on earth?

Answer 1

NASA could just send a probe there with a ton of plants which in a few million years would change the carbon dioxide to oxygen and make the planet warmer since plants make heat. So i believe yes.

Answer 2

No. This has been debated and from what I heard, the "noes" win out. Mars is not like earth. It is farther from the sun. It has less gravity than earth. So if you tried to terraform Mars, the natural forces on Mars would constantly and successfully "unterraform" Mars almost as fast as you do it to it. Example: the oxygen that you introduce will just as quickly float away in space. The water you may introduce will simply either float away or refreeze in the surface. It would be a losing battle and great waste of resources.

Answer 3

Technically, its possible.  But not feasible or practical.

Tectonics on Earth contribute to our dynamic environment, bringing new material to the surface (including gases such as oxygen and water) and "recycling" rocks and elements into the hot interior for 'reprocessing'.

But geological processes aren't necessarily a requirement for life.

Life on Earth requires liquid water, a rather narrow temperature range, and a nitrogen/oxygen atmosphere.

Mars has only 1% the atmospheric pressure as Earth, and the air that Mars does have is almost all carbon dioxide - not very usable to us.

The soil on Mars is dessicated and devoid of the minerals plants need.  There is no liquid water there, and the air pressure is too low to allow liquid water to remain on the surface for more than a few minutes.  So plants won't grow there.

There is no magnetic field protecting life on the surface from UV and cosmic radiation, so anything on the surface can't survive for long.

We could find some way to create an atmosphere (though it would take a LOT of gases to be found and transported there) and that could warm up the planet enough to allow liquid water for a while, but generating a global magnetic field to protect the plants and people is beyond our technology.

Answer 4

When will we start talking about tramming the 'interior of mars.I feel confident that temperature and gaseous pockets exist in the interior of Mars

Answer 5

Mars has only one percent of the atmosphere that we have here on Earth. That is because the gravity on Mars (a result of the total mass of the planet) is much less than that of Earth. Consequently, any attempt to make Mars into an earthlike planet will fail, and the gas will escape into space. There is not much sense in terraforming a planet without an atmosphere to protect it from solar radiation.

Answer 6

I doubt it. If it were really so easy to change the climate of a planet then we would not be worried about global warming at all. We would just change the climate of Earth to be what we wanted. Oh, you say that is different because all the cars and smoke stacks? Don't you think Mars is the way it is because natural forces still at work made it that way and are keeping it that way? Forces every bit as large as millions of smoke stacks and cars?

Answer 7

You'd have to add a lot of both both mass, and volatiles.

(It might not remain tectonicaly dead under such treatment.)

If you wanted to live on the surface, you'd have to provide

a magnetic field.

It's possible, but not real practical.

Answer 8

You're talking about jump-starting a planet.

Answer 9

Im sure the continental drifting played a key role in evolution but for terraforming i dont think it will cause any issues.... the key things are increasing the temp and adding greenhouse gases will do the trick...btw you cant shoot a probe of plants to mars they will die water cant even flow on mars its too cold how do you propose a plant will do frozen...you have to start with like algea type things and bacteria from antartica and the deep sea vents are being looked at..its gonna take years to get mars terraformed though with the proposed methods at least 100 years here is a link to just about eveyrthing you need to know about mars http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mars#Geolog...

Answer 10

No.  Since a tectonically dead planet has no magnetic field generated by an active, rotation, molten metalic core, the planet is not protected from solar and cosmic radation.  Nothing that lives on Earth could survive on the surface of such a planet.

.

Answer 11

first we need to induce global warming on the planet. send tons of special greenhouse has emision factories, and over a period of about 100 years, the planet will have a thicker atmosphere and will be warmer. we would then have to plant plants to naturally oxygenate the planet which would take thousands of years.

Answer 12

Difficult unless we can create a magnetosphere to stop loss of atmosphere due to the solar wind.

Answer 13

this is part of the space program

our  DNA is on the moon in storage

plans the put some on mars are in the works

our seeds of life ,and plants are all going into

space under cold storage

so when --- IT--- all comes to an end

who or what ever can start over again.