Life on earth originated around 3.5 billion years back while our earth itself formed around 4.5 billion years ago. We, humans, came along way after we came into existence. We took birth, we aged, we evolved and after all of that, we are here today in this era in which human interaction and participation can be seen everywhere and in everything.
You may have thought it before or probably heard it
by someone else that – Are humans meant to die where they were born or humanity
is destined to move to another world instead of dying on their homeworld –
EARTH.
Although many other planets were discovered in past
years which may sustain life and who knows, maybe they already are a homeworld
to some other beings unknown to us. Out of all these planets, the majority are
out of our reach in this era and the reason is the distance between those
planets and earth. Most of them are out of our solar system and many of them
are even in different galaxies. So, humans can’t even think of reaching there.
Among all extraterrestrial bodies in our solar
system, our moon and mars are in our reach at this time and we still chose mars
because of the heavy advantages it has over the moon. Mars contains all the raw
material required to sustain life. Compared to the moon it is rich in elements
like Carbon, Nitrogen, Oxygen and all of these are in biologically readily
accessible forms on the other hand moon has all these in traces except Oxygen
but still, it can’t be used without using a high amount of energy and money.
Similarities in our
homeworld & new world
Earth and Mars have comparable volume, mass, etc.
That means it also has days and night, it does have seasons as we have on
earth, it has similar gravitational force as well. Talking about the
atmosphere, mars have a thinner atmosphere than earth and the concentration of
gases are also different but still, it consists of gases we have here on
earth’s atmosphere
According to all the data collected with all the
research, we now have proof that once there was a time when there were
landscapes just like our planet like they still have mountains, volcanoes, and
traces of flowing rivers were found at many sites as well. So, you see a river
that means water and that is the most important thing a life needs to originate
or in other words, a carbon-based life to originate.
Challenges that humanity
will face
Though Mars is really a good option to be our next
homeworld still it’s not an easy task to colonize a whole new planet and that
too from scratch. Mars have almost everything that humans need to start a life
there but for life to grow everything should be perfectly balanced and it lacks
many crucial things which are not in balance.
- Atmosphere - It
has a whole different atmosphere, the concentration of gases differs, the
density of the atmosphere is different which is thinner than what we have here
on earth. Oxygen is less than 1% there unlike the earth’s atmosphere
- Gravitational force- It
has gravity slightly lesser than earth and that is because it is smaller than
earth. Everything there will be different from the earth from childbirth to
his/her growth, plants geotropism will be affected and many unknown
consequences will be observed
- Source of energy- Humans
need an energy source to run everyday tasks properly and apart from solar
energy and wind energy, a whole new setup and source will be needed if we
shifted to mars
- Radiation threat – The radiation level on mars is much higher because of its thinner atmosphere and weaker gravitational force. That amount of radiation can easily harm living beings at a cellular level.
The list of challenges does not end here but above
all are just a few of them.
How long until we colonize mars
Humans still have a long way to go to fulfill this
dream of a new homeworld. It is not like we haven’t reached there yet. Yes, we
already did this but not in person. Many man-made rovers and probes are
continuously watching over the red planet – rovers like curiosity, opportunity,
and the most recent one which landed on Mars in 2021 and started exploration in
March 2021 itself. Many space agencies are already planning to send astronauts
to Mars in near future and even private companies like Space-X by Elon Musk are
contributing to this dream. The future is not that far when humans will travel
between planets.
There is a saying in the movie Interstellar directed
by Christopher Nolan that –Mankind was born on Earth. It was never meant to die here.
And with this we can say that – Countdown to colonize Mars has begun.
Written By - Dewang Singh
Edited By - Anamika Malik
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