What is Terraforming?
The term is sometimes used more generally as a synonym for planetary engineering. The concept of terraforming developed from both science fiction and actual science. The term was probably invented by Jack Williamson in a science-fiction story (“Collision Orbit”) published during 1942 in Astounding Science Fiction, but the actual concept pre-dates this work. Based on experiences with Earth, the environment of a planet can be altered deliberately: however the feasibility of creating an unconstrained planetary biosphere that mimics Earth on another planet has yet to be verified. Mars is considered by many to be the most likely candidate for terraformation. Much study has been done concerning the possibility of heating the planet and altering its atmosphere, and NASA has even hosted debates on the subject. Several potential methods of altering the climate of Mars may fall within humanity’s technological capabilities, but at present the economic resources required to do so are far beyond th
Well, terraforming a world means transforming it into a living, habitable planet, with a breathable atmosphere and a bearable temperature. By altering conditions on Mars, we could kill off any ‘native’ life there which is the major concern. However, the difficulty of killing all the life on Mars is close to impossible. Anything we can do to Mars only scratches the surface we do not alter the rock down to dozens of kilometres below. We cannot do that, and thus, we cannot kill the life, which is most probably in the form of microbes, since if there are microbes, they will be buried many kilometres below the surface. This, however, is not a perfect scenario since preferably we wouldn’t want to kill any microbes at all. So, how would we terraform Mars? It sounds like a momentous task when you consider it. Mars has an average surface temperature of minus 60C, and so to make it viable for plant and human life you would need to raise that to above freezing, to roughly 5C. And of course you wo
Terraforming is the process of converting a barren, uninhabitable planet into a world that life can arise on. Most planets, other than earth, are hostile to life on their surface (though subsurface remains a possibility) either because it is too hot, too cold, too much radiation, too little atmosphere, too dense of an atmosphere no water (or other solvent) and in some cases simply because of hurricane winds. A habitable world such as our own is a perfect balance of all of the above, enough of atmosphere to keep our planet warm but not too much to trigger a runaway greenhouse effect, warm enough to have liquid water but not so warm to cause it to evaporate and so on. Teraforming takes into consideration all these different planetary properties and modifies them so the world can become more hospitable. // –> // –> // –> // –> // –> Why does this matter? Throughout the space phase of Spore, players will encounter a vast number of planets to colonize. Unfortunately, many of these are hosti
Terraforming is a controversial and currently theoretical science with the aim of transforming planets, moons or other celestial bodies into earth-like entities that could eventually support life. Mars seems like the most likely candidate since it is more similar to Earth than any other objects in our vicinity. If the dream of introducing life on Mars is to be at all possible, here are some of the hurdles that would have to be addressed: Although we have successfully sent space vehicles to Mars, it is still difficult and expensive to reach. There does not appear to be any liquid water on the surface of Mars. The average surface temperature on Mars is -63C (-81F), although some parts are much warmer. The atmosphere contains virtually no oxygen. Although terraforming Mars would likely be a lengthy and expensive project, there are some innovative technologies and ideas that could make the process feasible. A genetically engineered plant, for example, could self-propagate and convert the c
