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RE: Radiation on our way to and on MARS - Colonization of MARS Series
Another great post.
Unlike our own planet, Mars doesn't have the same internal dynamo in its core that generates a magnetic field, which means Mars is pretty defenseless from cosmic rays. That same field protects Earth's atmosphere from being stripped away by solar winds. Mars used to have a magnetic field, but after it deteriorated, most of the atmosphere was stripped away. Here is Mars' magnetosphere visualized and compared to Earth's.
It's basically non-existent.
It might sound scary, but our bodies are used to low levels of radiation. We have error correcting mechanisms that fix DNA and cells that repair. It's intense high level radiation that's dangerous because it overwhelms these processes and can cause morbidity rapidly.
Welcome back you were out for a while.
Thanks for adding that to the article. I would say that colonizing the whole surface of Mars is not needed, but who knows how our technology will evolve. Maybe people will actually want to live there, in which case we will eventually need to find a way to kickstart its core :)
Day job got in the way of my steemit double life :D
I found an article on nautil.us where an interesting idea is proposed. If we create a large magnetic field at Lagrange point L1, between Mars and the Sun, we create a magnetic tail that would shield Mars from solar winds. That way we wouldn't even need to somehow figure out how to jump start the core again. Mars' atmosphere would be saved. However, this wouldn't protect Mars from cosmic rays that originate from outside our solar system and bad boys like the aptly named Oh-My-God particle.
What a cool idea! Solar winds are the biggest problem of Mars so yes, it would actually fix a lot. I will read it.