for terraforming to happen we must find a way to reduce harmfull carbon dioxide from remaining on the planets in question also providing abundant water and oxygen, how do we start either of the following reactions? \nhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bosch_reaction\nhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sabatier_reaction
200863
You would need an enormous source of hydrogen, to make the reaction self sustained. That would mean a lot of water and electricity.\n\nMy idea to solve for excess CO2 would be to genetically modify algae so that they can live on Mars or Venus.
234283
yea dt sounds good fro example carbon is used to make graphite, diamonds ( i think), or helium... (baloons) or, oxygen we need it to live, it wencourages combustion, etc go to www.wikipedia.com and type any element tp search for its uses
107613
Apparently groups in Sweden, Australia, and the UK are working on this. There are probably others as well. They are making progress. It does appear that this might allow the industrial scale separation of water into hydrogen and oxygen, and the reduction of atmospheric CO2. \n\n\nRecently, Jim Barber and So Iwata of Imperial College in London identified the actual crucial molecules that are used to split water by plants. This might lead to huge advances eventually. It is quite exciting.
202109
One of the major gases is inert-Argon, and doesnt really seem to cycle-it makes up about 1%.  The primary gas is nitrogen, a small amount of which is fixed in the roots of plants (or by symbiotic organisms in those roots) and lifeforms such as blue-green algae-it makes up about 78%.  The greatest cycling gas is oxygen, which makes up about 21%.  Free oxygen, as found in our atmosphere, is extremely rare and likely would not be found in the absence of life-Oxygen in very reactive-many elements and compounds readily oxidize, such as iron turning to rust.  On Earth, plants take in carbon dioxide and split it, using the carbon to build things such as carbohydrates- the oxygen is releases, and used by aerobic lifeforms for respiration.  The level of carbon dioxide is about 0.1%- This is also very unusual, since in other planets with an atmosphere, carbon dioxide is a major gas...again, low CO2 is probably a sign of life.  The CO2 is low because the plants use it-it is returnd to the atmosphere by respiration.
612917
First of all, I think it is going to take a tad bit longer than a few decades to heat up the planet to the point of being uninhabitable. Go sit in yellow knife naked in the middle of winter and tell me then how long you think it will take to get the planet to the point hot enough to kill you.\n\nSecond, when we do reach that point, I think we will also have devised ways of living in hotter temperatures. I am thinking more of a bio dome type of surrounding. Or somehow force us to live underground. \n\nLastly, with things like the Kyoto accord helping, maybe we can turn things around with global warming, but only if we get rid of our dependency on fossil fuels.\n\nOtherwise, we are hooped.
383552
I do not get Popular Science, but I have heard proposals to put a sunshade in space to reduce the solar energy reaching Earth and so solve the global warming problem. This would definitely work, but I think it is too soon to proceed. What if we cool the Earth too much? Who would be to blame? If NASA put up the shade and Finland or some other country had a bad winter, would the US have to pay damages? It would be a political nightmare. With great power comes great responsibility. If we can really control the weather, then if somebody doesn't like the weather is our fault. Do we want to take that responsibility? Yes we do if massive bad stuff has already happened that can be 100% blamed on global warming, but when was the last time the world agreed 100% on anything? Even if sea levels rise 100 feet and we put the shade in place, somebody in the world would sue us anyway, but if we put it up now, before sea levels rise at all, EVERYBODY will sue us!
96225
First you build a sun blocker at the LaGrange point between Venus and the sun. It needs to block out 88% of the light so it will have to be BIG! You build it out of solarpanels in a grating array. That way you will make sure that not only does Venus get exactly the same amount as sun light as earth, you will get all the energy humanity will ever need as a by product. The blocker would also serve as an artificial magnetosphere as venus has no significant magnetic field on its own.\n\nHaving done that Venus will now begin to cool down. The water in the atmosphere will begin to fall as sulphuric acid. As the acid reacts with the soil to become sulphates the water evaporates, react with more sulphurus oxides and rain down again. The atmosphere will clear up but will still be very dense. As temperatures drop the water will dissolve CO2 and oxides in the soil. Hydroxide + H2CO3 => Carbonate rock + water. This reaction will wash the CO2 out of the atmosphere just as it did on the primordial earth. This will take some time but eventually with an atmosphere more similar to earth venus would be ready for a visit by humans. It wouldn´t be pleasant, it would still be hotter than on earth and the atmosphere would be mostly nitrogen gas and CO2, but it would be possible to go there. \n\nPlants could probably survive if they had enough water and here comes the biggest hurdle: there is almost no water left on Venus. Venus probably had as much water as earth once but due to the suns ultraviolet rays water vapour was split into hydrogen and oxygen. The hydrogen escaped into space while the oxygen reacted with other gasses like CO and SO or with the soil. On earth this process was halted because of the ozone layer that stops a lot of UV. Venus never developed life that could produce the abundance of oxygen needed to produce an ozone layer so over the eons the water was lost. \n\nBut we know that comets has crashed into earth. Comets are space icebergs. Maybe we could coax some suitable comets to crash into Venus and provide it with more water.\n\nThere is another problem. The Magellan space probe, that mapped Venus, showed that the venutian surface is 600 million years old. Earths surface is much older than that but it is also younger. Crust is being formed and is being subducted at the same time. What happened on venus to cause the entire surface to turn itself inside out? Could it happen again?
413222
Some planets are too hot for water, some are too cold. The larger planets are made from methane and other gases.
265387
for a long time if we hurry and grow up and learn responsible, sustainable living practices.  no more two kids per family, no more mcdonalds, no more flushing my toilet that uses 0.8 gallons of perfectly fine potable water per flush.  neither buying goods imported from anywhere, we would have to make things for ourselves, or at least keep things local.  no more tritium seeping out of our reactors.  producing our own food, namely agricultual goods, instead of relying on corporate greed.  our 1 person per vehicle goingto work everyday thing would have to stop, and a revolutionary mass transportation system developed.  FUSION would have to be viable, because we cannot keep on the path of mining our earth for things we just use up like coal, oil, titanium, gold, diamonds.  i'm not saying we would have to go back to our hunter/gatherer roots, but our disposable lifestyles need to be halted.  we could be a civilized planet that makes due with moderation with the basics.  but if we continue the way we are right now, the very, very wealthy people/families (saudi royal family for example) will engineer a mass kill off (big war) so that they can stay in power on a suitable living sphere.  the human race is compareable to a 72 hour bacterial culture in a petri dish.......we will use up our resources within 72 hours, and at the same time be producing toxins that will kill/mutate us (our own poop, our man made chemicals, etc.)  fusion, and a little help from aliens, and we could change everything.  hope is what i've got; that we will figure it out sooner rather than later.  keep learning, knowledge is pure power.
170684
Wow! another brain-tickling question from Neuro-Prof! What imagination! Yeah, that would be pretty interesting to see. I think a planet with such conditions will be a home for people who'd be considered super-heros by us on earth. Silicon would make their skin rough and abrasive. That would be just awesome!\n\nNow, coming to your question, I think the conditions that would favour such an atmosphere should be-\n1- Extremely high pressure. Pyrolysis is one of the methods to break Si-H bonds.\n\n2- Extremely high temperature.\n\n3- Reducing Atmosphere / Abundance of Dihydrogen. As compared to our earth's oxidising atmosphere, a reducing atmosphere would contribute a lot more in breaking the Si-O bonds.\n\nGreat question, I must say.
454589
The sun’s history \n\n5 billion years ago, a small cloud of gas and dust began to compress under its own weight, or if your a creationist 5000 years ago. As more and more gas began to be crushed on the weight of gravity, hydrogen within the core began to fuse together. This fusion processes, one still sought by earth's scientist makes hydrogen into helium, and release’s incredible amounts of energy. This energy is converted into tremendous amounts of heat and light, which forms the energy source for our planet. Imagine the power you could amass if you were able to corner the market on the amount of sunlight hitting the earth. The cloud from which the sun is formed, fortunately for us, did not use all of its gas and dust to make the Sun; that which was left over, less than one percent of the original material, formed the 9 planets. Incidentally Jupiter could be considered a failed sun, that didn't have sufficient mass to start the fusion process. \n\nLuckily for us in the real estate business the sun has 3 to 4 billion years more of prime building time. As the sun begins to age more and more of its interior will be converted into helium. Once the sun exhausts its source of fuel, it will begin fusing helium into heavier elements. The heaver element carbon, the primary new fusion product, gives off a lot more energy than the similar production of helium. This excess energy will make your property on the sun even more valuable, since the excess energy could be harvest for your use. In fact as the sun pumps out more energy it cause the outer layer of the sun to expand and will engulf the inner core planets up to Mars. This lost of prime real estate will make your investment in the sun even more valuable, since the available area for building will be reduced. Not to mention but the sun's color will change to a pleasing Red color, a nice change of pace from the current yellow/orange hue our sun currently has. .
568692
Regardless of whether or not there is a chance of an extinction event, I think we need to establish colonies on Mars and the moon. \n\nWe need to exapnd and explore. It is in our nature and if we want to maintain our edge in science, it serves us to develop our space capabilities.
190502
It depends on a variety of things: the angle of entry into the atmosphere, the size of the comet, the composition of the comet, etc.\n\nAn interesting note: one of the proposals for terraforming Mars is to use ice-coments to raise the amount of water vapor, create a greenhouse effect, and both warm the planet and add to the water on Mars.
653454
All space garbage should be recycled and composted into an ecosystem. Thats the complicated set of chemistry questions that goes wtih that particular problem.\n\nUsing large enough diameters and centripetal force we can generate strong enough and stable enough pseudo\ngravity to compensate for that problem. A chemical problem with a civil engineering fix.
257353
There are many.  What follows are just a few, and I am certain many people would put them into different catagories:\n\nDeforestation is one.  Humans have cut down many areas of natural vegetation and either replaced it with crops or built cities on it.  Plants return oxygen to the atmosphere from carbon dioxide; they reflect light and adsorb heat from the sun.  Both plants and the soil help adsorb water and pollutants.  The more of the planet we pave, the fewer trees and less soil exist to regulate these functions.\n\nPollution is another.  We dump our trash on land and in the oceans.  We create chemical compounds that wouldn't exist in nature and spread them in the land, water, soil and air.  Some directly effect the health of living things; others effect things like the ozone layer, taking away natural system that protect life on this planet.  We dump the heat from our indutrial processes into the atmosphere and water.\n\nAnd, now, we're relatively certain we are creating enough waste of carbon dioxide, water vapor, and other gases in our atmosphere to trap excess heat in the atmosphere.  Enough of it to warm the entire globe just fast enough that plants cannot adapt.  Fertile zones will change.  Crops may fail.  Livestock (and wild animals) that depend on plants for forage may die.  Areas that we now comfortably inhabit - with suitable climates and drinking water may become desert.  Others may end up under rising oceans as glaciers melt.\n\nWhat can we do about it?  Everyone will likely have a different answer.  As an American, I have to say I am more guilty than many others who will read this.  The average American family (about 5 people) owns 9 internal combustion (gasoline or diesel) engines; in a still developing nation like China, there is one engine for every 159 people. If the Chinese lived like the American, how much soot, smog, waste heat, and carbon dioxide would be produced on a single summer day of driving, lawn mowing, and boating?  How much could our planet take?\n\nThe answers aren't easy.  In the short term, we can use applicance - from light bulbs to computers - that are more efficient in how they use the energy we make.  We can think about how to reuse things to create less waste; or not use them at all. (Seriously, how much of your groceries really need to be double bagged?  And does your produce really need to go in another bag inside that?) We can decide whether we really need to build a new 3 bedroom house for ourselves, or if an older, smaller place can be refurbished to suit our tastes. \n\nBut, ultimately, we use too much.  We burn too many things to create the energy we use.  Period.  But, what are the alternatives?  Deforest vast tracts of land to crate wind and solar farms?  I will leave you to draw your own conclusions, but it seems more and more like the future of our existence on Earth depends on the right answer.
620673
Oxygen is the gas on which human respiration is dependant. There is a relative abundance of this gas in our atmosphere. Plants (which arrived on Earth before animals) were responsible for "polluting" the primeval atmosphere with this highly reactive gas (incidentally the same gas which forms ozone and screens us from deadly high energy radiation from the sun).\n\nI'll quickly run through the rest of the planets: -\n\n1. Mercury.\nHelium atmosphere which is almost nonexistent. Surface  temperatures vary between 350C (day) and minus 170C (night).\nVerdict: - instant death.\n\n2. Venus.\nAtmosphere has large quantities of sulphur dioxide (which smells like rotten eggs or a really bad fart!) and a constant rain of sulphuric acid. Pressure 90 times greater than the Earth's. Temperature of about 500C. Suspected that this is the effect of runaway global warming (heat trapped by carbon dioxide).\nVerdict: - Instant nasty death. The closest physical approximation to Hell.\n\n3. Earth.\nMmmmm. Nice.\n\n4. Mars.\nAtmosphere of mainly carbon dioxide. Atmospheric density fluctuates, but is never enough for liquid water to form in appreciable amounts. Mean surface temperature about minus 27C.\nVerdict: - Temperature and gravity are within tolerances for human life, but needs an oxygen and water transplant. No go (for the present).\n\n5., 6., 7., and 8. Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune.\nThese are all termed "gas giants". They all have cores, but at depths within their atmospheres such that surface pressure is enormous. Temperatures of between minus 150C (Jupiter) and minus 220C (Neptune).\nVerdict: - All non-starters.\nAs a piece of trivia, Saturn is the only planet which is less dense than water, which means that if you could find a big enough basin of water, it would float!\n\nAnd finally (phew!) 9. Pluto.\nSmaller than the moon. No atmosphere. Surface temperature minus 230C.\nVerdict: - Waste of time and space. Not even worth the term "planet". There are bigger moons than this! Ours for a start!\n\nThe combination of a planet's density and size affect its gravitational attraction. If Earth were denser or larger, its gravitational attraction would increase (ie// you'd weigh more).\nMercury is about the size and density of the moon, so you could probably jump about 10-20 feet in the air quite easily. Mars is less dense but larger than Mercury, and has comparable gravity. Venus is about the same as Earth. Jupiter isn't dense, but could hold about 1,000 Earths, so its gravity is too high for us. The other gas giants, for all their size, are appreciably less dense than Earth, and have gravities not much greater than Earth. And Pluto's so small and insignificant that I reckon if you jumped you could possibly end up in orbit around it.\n\nEarth is the ONLY place in the entire Universe that we know of which has conditions which can sustain life of any sort. If we play a part in altering the atmosphere on this planet the Earth will still exist.It just might not be suitable for life.\n\nFurther answer to your additional response bit: -\n\nIf an astronaut removed his helmet on any planet except Earth he would die almost instantly.
541192
Well, you are correct in that sittin' around will end in our collective lifes' destruction.  And attempts at proving life beyond Earth are ongoing.  Many of the missions to Mars are currently trying to prove that (among other things).  SETI is also an attempt to see or hear if anything is out there.  But that's a shot in the dark (har, har, de har har).\n\nThere are some significant steps being made to make spacecraft that can go "fast".  VASMIR (plasma rocket) among other things.\n\nThe two technologies that will drive us into the next level of abilities are quantum and nano technology.  Those will have significant impact on everything we build and contemplate.\n\nEventually our sun will get hotter, that could boil off our oceans (way before the sun bloats).  The Earths core could also cool enough that our magnetic field dissappears.  This would cause our atomosphere to slowly whisp away.\n\nBeing able to live in more hostile environments with nearly 100% recycling ability is our greatest challenge.  WIth that, we can start making our way out of this solar system and on to the next.\n\nWrite me for more discussion.  Fa shizzle.