Mars (Planet)

This map shows the distribution of water across the martian surface. Precisely, it does that by measuring how much hydrogen atoms are in the ground. The hydrogen could be bound in water molecules, but also in other chemicals. The map shows the water-equivalent amount of hydrogen, i.e. how much water would there be in the martian surface if it was all bound in water molecules.

The data is based on the MONS (Mars Odyssey Neutron Spectrometer) instrument which is part of the GRS (Gamma Ray Spectrometer) instrument aboard the Mars Odyssey orbiter spacecraft. link

If you wanna learn more about neutron spectrometers, check this article:

https://www.nasa.gov/solar-system/moon/wheres-the-water-two-resource-hunting-tools-for-the-moons-surface/

The Neutron Spectrometer System

Sensing the amount of hydrogen in the subsurface is the job of the Neutron Spectrometer System, or NSS. It can measure the total volume present, up to three feet below the surface. NSS works by measuring changes in the number and energy of particles called neutrons that are always coming from the Moon. When these tiny particles strike something that’s about their size – like a hydrogen atom – they lose a lot of their energy. That’s a change that NSS can detect and use to infer the presence of hydrogen.

© CC BY SA 3.0 IGO, ESA/DLR/FU Berlin for HRSC, ESA/TGO/CaSSIS for CaSSIS

to successfully settle mars, lots of different technology is needed. people need to figure out how do grow food and build houses on mars. spaceships is only a part of the story.

we need more research into these things. We need a Mars Technology Institute to research these things. like, a public/private research facility.

Between 1 and 7 October, ESA’s ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter (TGO) and Mars Express spacecraft turned their eyes towards interstellar comet 3I/ATLAS, as it passed close to Mars.

CaSSIS could not distinguish the nucleus from the coma, because 3I/ATLAS was too far away. Imaging this kilometre-wide nucleus would have been as impossible as seeing a mobile phone on the Moon from Earth.

But the coma, measuring a few thousand kilometres across, is clearly visible. The coma is created as 3I/ATLAS approaches the Sun. The Sun’s heat and radiation is bringing the comet to life, causing it to release gas and dust, which collects as this halo surrounding the nucleus.

The full size of the coma could not be measured by CaSSIS because the brightness of the dust decreases quickly with distance from the nucleus. This means that the coma fades into the noise in the image.

Typically, material from the coma is swept into a long tail, which can grow up to millions of kilometres long as the comet moves closer to the Sun. The tail is much dimmer than the coma. We can’t see the tail in the CaSSIS images, but it may become more visible in future observations as the comet continues to heat up and release more ice.

Nick Thomas, Principal Investigator of the CaSSIS camera explains, “This was a very challenging observation for the instrument. The comet is around 10 000 to 100 000 times fainter than our usual target.”

The work continues

3I/ATLAS has not yet revealed itself in the Mars Express images, partly because these were taken with an exposure time of just 0.5 seconds (the maximum limit for Mars Express) compared to five seconds for ExoMars TGO.

Scientists will continue to analyse the data from both orbiters, including adding together several images from Mars Express to see if they can spot the faint comet.

They also tried to measure the spectrum of light from comet 3I/ATLAS using Mars Express’s OMEGA and SPICAM spectrometers, and ExoMars TGO’s NOMAD spectrometer. At this point, it is uncertain whether the coma and tail were bright enough for a spectral characterisation.

Scientists will keep analysing the data over the next weeks and months to try to figure out more about what 3I/ATLAS is made of and how it is behaving as it approaches the Sun.

Colin Wilson, Mars Express and ExoMars project scientist at ESA says: “Though our Mars orbiters continue to make impressive contributions to Mars science, it’s always extra exciting to see them responding to unexpected situations like this one. I look forward to seeing what the data reveals following further analysis.” A rare visitor

Originating from outside our Solar System, comet 3I/ATLAS is only the third interstellar comet ever seen, following 1I/ʻOumuamua in 2017 and 2I/Borisov in 2019.

These comets are absolutely foreign. Every planet, moon, asteroid, comet and lifeform in our Solar System share a common origin. But interstellar comets are true outsiders, carrying clues about the formation of worlds far beyond our own.

Comet 3I/ATLAS was first spotted on 1 July 2025 by the Asteroid Terrestrial-impact Last Alert System (ATLAS) telescope in Río Hurtado, Chile. Since then, astronomers have used ground-based and space telescopes to monitor its progress and discover more about it.

Based on its trajectory, astronomers suspect that 3I/ATLAS could be the oldest comet ever observed. It may be three billion years older than the Solar System, which is itself already 4.6 billion years old. What’s next?

Next month, we will observe the comet with our Jupiter Icy Moons Explorer (Juice). Though Juice will be further from 3I/ATLAS than our Mars orbiters were last week, it will see the comet just after its closest approach to the Sun, meaning that it will be in a more active state. We don’t expect to receive data from Juice’s observations until February 2026 – find out why in our FAQs.

Icy wanderers such as 3I/ATLAS offer a rare, tangible connection to the broader galaxy. To actually visit one would connect humankind with the Universe on a far greater scale. To this end, ESA is preparing the Comet Interceptor mission.

Comet Interceptor is due to launch in 2029 into a parking orbit, from where it will lie in wait for a suitable target – a pristine comet from the distant Oort Cloud that surrounds our Solar System, or, unlikely but highly appealing, an interstellar object like 3I/ATLAS.

Michael Kueppers, Comet Interceptor project scientist expands: “When Comet Interceptor was selected in 2019, we only knew of one interstellar object – 1I/ʻOumuamua, discovered in 2017. Since then, two more such objects have been discovered, showing large diversity in their appearance. Visiting one could provide a breakthrough in understanding their nature.”

While it remains improbable that we will discover an interstellar object that is reachable for Comet Interceptor, as a first demonstration of a rapid response mission that waits in space for its target, it will be a pathfinder for possible future missions to intercept these mysterious visitors.

Follow the link for more details

The composition of the atmosphere is one of the most significant long-term changes that human settlement brings to a planet. A thicker atmosphere rich in oxygen leads to a stabler day-night-temperature, but also provides oxygen for plants and animals to thrive outside of shielded habitats, on the bare surface. On top of that, in increases the total pressure of the atmosphere, making liquid water on the surface possible.

If CO~2~ from the martian atmosphere is reduced and turned into O~2~ (the carbon could be stuck in plants or plastics, deposited in landfills), then new CO~2~ would evaporate from the poles to refill what was lost, because the solid CO~2~ from the poles is in balance with the gaseous CO~2~ of the atmosphere. But the atmosphere would still be enriched in O~2~, so the total atmospheric pressure would increase.

The industrial revolution has added 200 μbar (20 Pascal) of CO~2~ to Earth's atmosphere, at a rate of 3.5 μbar per year since 2000.

Assuming that martian settlers will emit O~2~ instead of CO~2~ at a similar rate, it would take roughly 286 000 years to reach an atmospheric pressure of 1 bar (what we have on Earth today) on Mars.

It's a long read, and i'm sorry for that. I try to keep myself short.

The goal here is to estimate the cost of a ticket to mars if you intend to live there permanently.

The goal for the price of the ticket is less than 1 billion, ideally around 10 million USD per person, at a launch cost of $1000/kg, which would mean you could bring 10 t of stuff (besides the rocket itself) with you. This sounds both much and little at the same time, depending on how you look at it. It might sound much because you're not used to carrying a backpack that big, or you're not thinking that when you move houses on earth, your stuff that you carry around weighs 10 tonnes in total. But, you have to remember that most of this stuff is going to be machinery. We're literally trying to build factories on Mars, and that factory machinery has a certain weight attached to it, so it cannot be avoided.

At the same time, 10 tonnes might sound like incredibly little if you're aware of how factories are typically being built on earth today. Factories on earth today use very heavy machinery that is significantly more massive than 10 tonnes even for a single process, even for rather trivial workflows. The reason is simply because today, on earth, nobody gives a crap about designing lightweight machinery for factories. Even the most basic industrial processes use incredibly bulky and heavy-weight machines that weight around a 1000 tonnes, even for as simple processes as producing ammonium from hydrogen and nitrogen. The same process could be done in a microwave-sized machine weighing no more than 10 kg, but industry today insists on using big, bulky machinery for doing large-scale processing. This could and needs to change dramatically with spaceflight and martian settlement. Every piece of machinery needs to be optimized towards being lightweight, to the point of even "hollowing out the bones", if you enjoy the analogy to birds in nature. You might also enjoy remembering that the liver organ in the human body weighs barely more than a single kg, but catalyses at least a hundred different chemical reactions, producing at least a hundred different chemical outputs in moderate amounts. Small-scale chemical processing is possible, and nature has perfected it; it is merely our human superstition that tries to make machines huge and bulky, instead of small and weight-efficient.

Call me a fool, i don't care. :D if you have helpful comments, please post them

This post was inspired by this post.

If we grow algae in a plastic bag directly under the sunlight and genetically modify these algae to be non-toxic (or at least contain only toxins that can be deactivated by cooking) and produce gluten, we could grind them to powder and use that to bake bread.

this could be useful for a future mars settlement, where conventional greenhouses would be expensive because they would have to be completely air-tight, but air-tight plastic bags might be cheap.

I used AI (gulp) to generate an image of this:

I hope you all won't decapitate me for using AI to generate an image.

Btw here's a list of typical algae's nutrient content:

Source is Wikipedia. Spirulina are a type of algae that is a potential food candidate for spaceflight missions and mars settlement. You can find more using your favorite search engine using the keyword "spirulina".

Source: https://brilliantmaps.com/solar-system-surface/

Extract....

While Mars may be a desiccated place where water no longer flows, the planet still has glaciers slowly moving across its surface. Previously, it was thought that Martian glaciers were pure ice with a thin cover of rock and dust. But after 20 years of exhaustive research, scientists have concluded that glaciers all over the planet contain more than 80% water ice, meaning they are nearly pure. These findings could alter our understanding of Mars' climate history and have significant implications for future crewed missions dependent on in-situ resource utilization (ISRU)......

cross-posted from: https://discuss.online/post/24399349

http://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/a-city-on-mars-now-in-paperback

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Can you make babies in space? Should corporations govern space settlements? What about space war?

No bonus panel

First, let me say, I'm an absolute sucker for European style graphic novels. So when I caught On Mars_ at my local shop, I thumbed through it... Yeah, I'm in.

Dystopian future, criminals are used as slave labor to build a colony on Mars. The story follows a new prisoner, sent to Mars for 20 years. As a police officer, she accidentally killed a kid, the daughter of an influential politician.

The prison colony is full of gangs, religious fanatics, and escapees operating in the wild.

Through the three sections, she encounters these multiple groups and struggles to survive. Until someone decides to overthrow the power structure and take over everything for themselves.

It's honestly, a GREAT read, I had no problem with it at all until the last few pages.

Highly recommend. The red planet you can sleep on

Please remove if this is against the rules.

Discusses the spheres spotted by Perseverance rover

Consider the following tech tree.

• The rocket can double as a living habitat, if it manages to land in one piece. Martian dirt could be used to re-inforce the walls to protect against radiation.

• Solar energy with a battery or nuclear could serve as a power source.

• Water can be extracted from regolith (martian rock) by baking the regolith in a furnace, the water evaporates and can the be re-condensed.

• Oxygen can be produced through the electrolysis of water. One kilogram of water produces approximately 880 g of O~2~, which is roughly enough for a day per person.

• Methane can be produced through the Sabatier process, which takes as input H~2~ and CO~2~, and can be used as a rocket fuel and to make bioplastics out of it.

• Plants are the tricky part. I will create a further post later in the future to give more detailed information about this. The basic gist is that you can create greenhouses if you have the basic ingredients (mostly water).

from left to right:

• living inside the spaceship to reduce the need for construction/habitats
• solar panels (800 m² per person gives 80 kWpeak)
• bagger + furnace (not sketched) for excavating hydrated minerals and heating them in an oven to release water
• some greenhouses (recycled water for watering is displayed)

made with my newly acquired Gaomon drawing tablet + krita on linux :)

it's my first drawing, please be kind <3