A manned mission to Mars could happen sometime in the coming decades, possibly by 2030. One of the safety issues, which was discussed by researchers and public health experts at the Humans 2 Mars Summit, is how to deal with dust on the Red Planet.

According to some of them, the martian dust’s high silicate mineral content could produce bad chemical effects by interacting with water in human lung tissue. While Richard Williams, NASA’s chief health and medical officer, was more concerned about perchlorates in the dust which can cause damage to the thyroid gland.

But of course human visitors would be wearing spacesuits on Mars as the planet’s oxygen content is insufficient and there are radiation issues as well. But the dust can stick to the suits and reach living spaces to result in health problems, damage to critical instruments and more troubles. Maybe they will find some way to clean their spacesuits perfectly before entering their accommodation.

The good news is that we can collect a lot of data from the robotic missions, and then gain as much necessary info as possible to ensure full safety for us to land and live on Mars. According to Grant Anderson, co-founder of Paragon Space Development, “The Apollo programme spent $17 million trying to solve their lunar dust problems, and I’m not sure they made much progress, because they had to do the tests on Earth. For Mars, the precursor robotic missions should all have some way to test how dust is going to kill you“.

All this is very exciting, right? But when are these guys going to plan a trip to the new Earth? Maybe it will happen after a few centuries?

[Source]

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Solar storms, as you know, head towards Earth once in a while to remind us about the Sun’s incredible power. The fast-moving clouds of charged particles reached our planet this week and we are extremely lucky to be on Earth and not on Mars. Studies show that the Earth’s magnetosphere makes sure that the planet is not too affected by solar storms.

It was in 2008 that researchers got a chance to study the effects of the solar storm on two planets (Mars and Earth) at the same time and under the same solar-wind conditions. It was found that the Red Planet lost oxygen atoms in its atmosphere 10 times faster than Earth. This difference is thought to be dependent on the strength of each planet’s magnetic field. As you might know, Mars has a magnetic field that is only one-tenth as strong as Earth’s.

As scientists have long believed that the presence of a magnetic deflector shield is a good defense against charged particles from the Sun, the new results didn’t come as a surprise for the researchers.

But some discoveries made in the past few years related to the Earth’s magnetosphere have also suggested that the field is less-effective against solar storms. Studies have suggested that our planet’s magnetosphere might be transferring more energy from the solar wind to the upper part of the atmosphere when compared to smaller planets with weaker magnetospheres.

But when Mars and Earth lined up on the same side of the sun in 2008, Yong Wei, a researcher at the Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research in Germany, and his team were able to collect data on the loss of oxygen atoms from the atmospheres of both the planets. The oxygen loss at Mars was found to be 10 times higher than at Earth.

More solar storms are expected this week and the researchers are looking forward to take advantage of a present alignment between the Sun, Earth, Mars, and Venus. Venus is important in the study as the planet has a thicker atmosphere and no magnetic field.

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