What IF #1 : What if you live on Mars?

Bringing you the first of many questions in the What IF series.

Asking questions related to astronomy and physics, wondering about the possibilities, exploring new thoughts.

What if you go to Mars?

Imagine, you are wearing a spacesuit and you see only red soil around you. You are one of the thousands of people that NASA and other space agencies like SpaceX are planning to send on Mars. Imagine that you are on Mars and building a colony over there. What would it be like on Mars?

A whole new world..

When you land on Mars and try to move around, you will move slower than you do here on Earth. That’s because the gravity on Mars is very much less than our earth, almost 38% of the gravity of the Earth. It would appear like a slo-mo movie to you. And the Earth could appear like a blue dot from there, while the Jupiter could appear brighter and giant when near and could appear dull when it’s far. More number of asteroids could be seen in the evening and night sky.
The orbit of Mars is elliptical, and hence there are seasons. You could enjoy 7 months of spring, and then 6 months of warm summer, 5 months fall and finally 4 months of freezing winter. The days on Mars are similar to that on the Earth, just more than 24 hours. But it takes almost 1.88 Earth years to complete a revolution around the Sun. That means you will be celebrating your birthday for every 687 days.
You could see the total solar eclipses by the two moons of Mars, the Phobos and the Deimos, and you may see multiple eclipses in a day. And you could see the largest mountain of our solar system, the Olympus Mons (24 km height). So, totally it could be a festival for your eyes. But the good things stop there.

Sounds wonderful?

Here ‘s what you might not like..

The temperature on the Mars is the first thing that could bother you. The average temperature on Mars is -60°C and it could vary from a freezing -126°C on a winter night near the poles to warm(when compared to the average temperature) 20°C on a summer day near the equator. So,you would probably want to remain inside the capsule to remain warm.

The atmosphere of Mars is so thin(about 100 times thinner than Earth) and the amount of oxygen available for breathing is very less. The atmosphere of Mars consists of 95% of CO2 and very less amount of breathable Oxygen. And what about our life savior, the true elixer,”water”. It’s the basic necessity, right? But sadly it could be found only at the poles in a very small proportion.
The lack of global magnetic field on Mars makes things even worse. The cosmic rays and other radiations from the Sun and other bodies of space could hit the surface and hit you as well causing damage and cancer.
But that’s not all. You might have heard about the dust storm on Mars. They are so dangerous that you could probably don’t see anything around for weeks.
It could take hundreds or thousands of years to terra-form Mars and make it Earth like. So we should keep “our earth” safe as long as we can.