Scientists to cause global warming on Mars

To make Mars more life-friendly, scientists have found a method of heating up the cold surface with particles similar to party glitter.

Mars’s once-habitable surface is far too cold for Earth-derived life today. While scientists have found evidence that rivers flowed on the surface of Mars 600,000 years ago, the planet has dried out and become uninhabitable. Modern Mars has a thin CO2 atmosphere and lacks enough condensed or mineralized CO2 to restore a warm climate.

A team of researchers from the University of Chicago, Northwestern University, and the University of Central Florida has introduced a groundbreaking method for terraforming Mars – transforming the planet into something more Earth-like that can support human life. According to the scientists, their method could be 5,000 times more efficient than any of the previously proposed methods.

One of the previously proposed strategies was similar to the one humanity already has experience with – releasing material into the atmosphere to cause the greenhouse effect, trapping solar heat at the surface.

The only problem is that importing the necessary gasses from Earth might be costly and complicated. To address this, the team explored the idea of releasing engineered natural dust particles into Mars's atmosphere. This approach leverages materials already available on Mars instead of importing them from Earth.

Mars's dust is rich in iron and aluminum, but these particles aren't effective at warming the planet on their own. Due to their size and composition, they tend to cool the surface slightly rather than increase its temperature.

That’s why researchers engineered dust into rod-shaped particles, similar in size to commercially available glitter. These particles trap escaping heat and scatter sunlight towards the surface, enhancing Mars's natural greenhouse effect.

Two climate models created by scientists indicated that the method can globally warm Mars by more than 30 degrees Kelvin. Such an increase in temperature would start melting the ice, and create a suitable temperature for microbiological life.

The effects could become noticeable in just a few months. Likewise, the warming would be reversible, ceasing within a few years if the release were halted.

There are still many unknown variables that could impact the effect of global warming on Mars. The planet does have water and clouds, and as the planet warms, it’s possible that water will increasingly start to condense around the particles and fall back to the surface as rain.

"Climate feedbacks are really difficult to model accurately," Edwin Kite, an associate professor of geophysical sciences at the University of Chicago and corresponding author on the study, said in a press release.

"To implement something like this, we would need more data from both Mars and Earth, and we'd need to proceed slowly and reversibly to ensure the effects work as intended."

However, this discovery could be a crucial first step towards making Mars habitable. While raising dust in the sky won’t create breathable air for humans on Mars, if the surface became suitable for microbes and crops, it could gradually release oxygen into the atmosphere.

“This research opens new avenues for exploration and potentially brings us one step closer to the long-held dream of establishing a sustainable human presence on Mars,” Kite concluded.

The findings were published on August 7th in Science Advances journal.