The storms that human colonies on Mars would face.

in Popular STEM12 hours ago

The storms that human colonies on Mars would face.




What dangers will the first humans to set foot on the red planet have to face? because when they are there they will not be able to receive physical help from Earth, if someone becomes seriously ill or suffers an accident or there is a failure in the base, they will have to solve everything, any mission would take, in the best of cases, several months to arrive, even if we had nuclear fusion engines it would take at least a month.


They could only receive messages of consolation, advice, do this if it goes well, but they will be the ones who will have to operate the machinery, the tools or the operating room to save their companions, at least a month if Mars is in the correct position, because if it is not, things become much more complicated, since the red planet can be located more than 400 million kilometers from Earth at its maximum distance record and a month is a technology that is going to take a while, nuclear fusion engines They may be around in the 1940s, at best they say there will be tests in the 1930s, but I'm not very sure.



Souce


This is a dust devil, it is a small part compared to what a global dust storm would be, a global dust storm is literally that, there are dust storms on Mars at any time, but every 2 years or 3 years approximately there are dust storms that can reach, not always, but they can reach the size of the entire planet, they can envelop the entire planet in dust and they are terrible.


And not because of the wind, it is not like the Martian movie or in other movies where it seems that the waves of wind drag the astronauts and send them flying or destroy the greenhouse, things or facilities, the winds on Mars can reach 60 to 100 km per hour or more in local gusts, but it has nothing to do with the thrust force, there is the detail, the wind can go at 100 km/h, but it is so not dense that it would not knock you down. ground nor would it overturn your equipment, nor of course would it take away a greenhouse, not at all, it would raise the dust around you, yes, but you could walk calmly in that 100 km per hour wind due to the low atmospheric density of Mars.


The denser something that travels towards you is, the worse, receiving the push of a wind with only 1% atmospheric pressure at 100 km/h is not the same as receiving a hammer blow at 10 km/h, it is not the same, but the problem is not the wind, but the dust, that is dangerous because the dust is fine and abrasive, they are small particles, many of them are so small that they are respirable and worse, apart from the perchlorates that can go in those particles that can have a carcinogenic effect if you breathe them for a long time, Many of these particles are sharp because they have not suffered erosion by water here on Earth, for example, to regenerate a beach here on Earth, when you have to regenerate a beach with sand so that bathers can bathe on that beach, for example, or because the sand has been lost due to a storm, you need sea sand, sand taken from a quarry is not worth it, because the sand particles from a quarry are broken, they are tiny, yes, but they cut, say full of sand a beach with those particles of quarry sand, the bathers were going to have their feet burned in a short time, from constantly rubbing against those with that broken, sharp sand, you need sand that is already polished, eroded by water, they are normally extracted from the seabed, but you need sand that is already polished.




And on Mars a similar thing happens, the dust is not eroded by water, they are not "boulders", the boulder is obviously larger, the dust is sharp, they are small knives that you can breathe and even worse, because this makes the matter worse, they are electrostatically charged and that makes them adhere to everything, suits, solar panels, visors, seals, they get into any crack, they can clog filters, mechanisms, suit seals, rovers, they can end up wearing out any weak part of a Rover, a suit or whatever and it is tremendous.


To top it off, all these dust storms can generate electrical sparks, they would not be lightning, they would be small discharges, but many and this complicates the situation even more.


The studies that have also been done recently on the dust, it contains hyperchlorates, silica, iron oxides, nanometals, it may have arsenic, debate in what quantity and what is clear is that, if inhaled, it can cause lung irritation, on the moon, the astronauts who went there breathed the lunar dust, which is also similar to this case, perhaps not perhaps the one on the moon is more serious, be careful, because here there is some wind and some erosion, little, but there is, but on the moon it is that there is no type of erosion.


And the symptom that the astronauts had with the very short time that they were breathing that lunar dust was similar to Leno's fever, a quite severe irritation of the lungs, it did not leave them, it did not cancel them because they were only there for a short time, but of course, on Mars a mission would not be a few days or weeks like on the Moon, it would be months and possibly years, surely the majority of exits would not be made by humans, but by drones or robots, they would be avatars of humans to act or work, they could be like Tesla, with arms and equipment to handle things.




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