It turns out that living on Mars is impossible due to dangerous space radiation.
An
international consortium of space experts has published a new document that
explains the hazard of particle radiation to future human residents on Mars.
According to a UCLA press release, the findings reveal that spending more than
four years on Mars would expose humans to levels of radiation that are unsafe
for humans.
Particle
radiation from the Sun, as well as distant stars and galaxies, is one of the
many major threats to potential human Mars explorers. Though the Earth's
magnetosphere normally protects humans from such radiation, astronauts who
spend long periods of time in space are exposed to it.
A Mars trip lasting more than four years would expose
people to dangerously high quantities of radiation, the majority of which would
come from beyond our solar system, according to the researchers. The
researchers from UCLA, MIT, Moscow's Skolkovo Institute of Science and
Technology, and GFZ Potsdam coupled geophysical models of particle radiation
with models of radiation's impacts on humans and spacecraft to arrive at their
conclusions.
The Sun can protect future Mars astronauts from the worst radiation
The new analysis, which was published in the journal Space Weather, provides exact timing clues for a future Mars expedition.
According to the analysis, a human Mars mission should take less than four
years if the spaceship has enough shielding to keep the occupants safe.
Furthermore, the expedition should take off from Earth during the solar
maximum, when solar activity is at its most intense. This is because greater
solar activity deflects the most harmful particles from distant galaxies.
According to Yuri Shprits, a UCLA research
geophysicist and co-author of the report, because a crewed journey to Mars is
projected to take about nine months with current technologies, it would be
conceivable to bring humans to Mars and back in less than two years.
"This analysis indicates that, while space
radiation places stringent limits on how heavy a spacecraft can be and how long
it can take to launch, and also offers technological challenges for human
missions to Mars," Shprits added.
With China announcing in June that it plans to send
the first humans to Mars in the 2030s and SpaceX racing to launch its now
completely completed Mars-bound Starship, the new study will aid space agencies
in determining the exact timeline for their Mars missions. The finer aspects of
these first missions are coming together, pushing us closer to becoming a
spacefaring civilization, alongside the recent finding of possible landing
locations on Mars.
Reference: Journal Space weather
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