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July 7, 2020October 21, 2020

The History of How We Think of Mars

From canals to Martians, we take a look at the history of the Red Planet.

It’s easy to pass cheap judgement on the brilliant minds of the past when we explore the history of Mars. But you might be forgiven for believing in Martians when you are viewing the planet from more than 50 million km away through the world’s first telescope. What we know about our dusty red neighbour has increased parallel to developments in astronomy and space technology, and we are still making new findings to this day.

The first recorded observations of Mars were around 400BC

And you won’t be surprised to hear that in those times not a lot could be said for Mars. It was known simply as a fiery red colour in the sky. As was typical during this time, the Greeks decided to give this coloured dot a name. They chose the name Ares, after their god of war. The Romans preferred the name Mars, after their own warmongering deity, and the name stuck.

Galileo was the first person to see Mars through a telescope

The father of observational astronomy, Galileo Galilei, was the first to magnify the image of Mars via telescope in 1609. By the end of the same century, ideas about extraterrestrial life on Mars are considered for the first time. Fast forward to the end of the 18th century and, through advances in telescopic technology, the vital statistics for Mars had been uncovered. Most notably, its distance being 54 million km from Earth, its day being 39 minutes longer than Earth’s, and its two neighbouring moons. During this time, Sir William Herschel also concluded that not only do aliens live on Mars, but also the sun. Clearly, further investigation was still required.

A simple translation error sparks Martian mania

In 1877 Italian astronomer Giovanni Schiaparelli described the lines he could see on Mars through his telescope as “canali”, which translates to “channels” in English. ‘Canali’ was misinterpreted to mean canal by American astronomer Percival Lowell. Considering canals to be a man/alien made entity, Lowell dedicated his life’s work to publishing books which suggested that Martians had been busy constructing a complex water supply system on Mars. As a result, Martian mania was born.

Adding fuel to the fire, a young Orson Welles produced a radio adapted version of “The War of The Worlds”. Presented in storytelling format, the broadcast unintentionally beguiled New York listeners into fleeing their homes, in the belief they were under attack from the inhabitants of Mars.

The world of media got wind of the fascination with Mars, and the idea of Martians gave inspiration for comics, movies and music. Rest in peace, David Bowie.

It took until 1965 to debunk the existence of Martians

In a blunt and conclusive manner, the NASA-launched Mariner 4 space probe broadcasted to Earth images of a dusty barren wasteland. There was a collective groan from the conspiracy theorist community, and Martian mania was as good as over.

While the fantasists amongst us felt disappointment, others saw an opportunity for a new home for humanity. Curiosity, the NASA space rover, was sent to Mars in 2012 to inspect whether its conditions would be suitable for supporting life on the Red Planet. While we have proven the lack of water on the surface of Mars, there remains hope that dormant life may be present beneath the surface. That is all we need for our imaginations to run wild!

June 30, 2020October 21, 2020

Phobos and Deimos: Two Little Martian Potatoes

This is the story behind the doomed neighbours of the red planet

Ok, they’re considerably bigger than the potatoes that you might find in your local supermarket. But, if you magnified those potatoes you would have the perfect comparison for the two moons, Phobos and Deimos, that circle the dusty red planet in our solar system. This article will explore exactly how far we have come in our exploration of these distant little moons.

Phobos and Deimos are tiny moons in comparison to our own moon

23km and 6km wide respectively, to be exact, with a gravitational pull not even strong enough to give them a spherical form. For this reason, they have a potato-like appearance. It is believed that they were once part of the asteroid belt, until they were kicked out by the gravity of Jupiter and towards the orbit of Mars.

The two little potato-shaped moons were discovered by Asaph Hall in 1877. We might have thought that by this time the Romans and Greeks would have little influence over the name of the colourful objects in our sky, but Hall decided, in tribute, to name them Phobos and Deimos, after the sons of the Greek god of war.

The doomed moons of Mars

Phobos is closer to Mars than Deimos and is making its way towards the planet at a rate of 2 meters per year. Not something to worry about for now, but in 50 to 100 million years it may crash into Mars. This would destroy any life that may come to exist on the planet during that time. There is however, a chance that the gravitational pull of Mars could rip Phobos into millions of pieces. You could consider this to be a natural defence by the planet. There is evidence of debris impact on Phobos.

Less than 6000 miles from Mars, it is believed that explosions on the red planet have thrown debris into the sky. This caused craters and avalanches to form in the moon’s surface. Not content with being a lifeless wasteland, the red planet seems intent on destroying anything that comes too close.

Unlike Phobos, Deimos is slowly saying farewell to Mars. The smaller of the two moons, Deimos will leave Mars within the next few hundred million years. Once it has been cast off into space, Mars will go from a planet with two moons to a planet with none. Maybe that’s what happens when a planet takes its moons for granted.

Will we ever visit Phobos and Deimos?

The two seemingly insignificant and unimpressive moons actually contain important information for us on planet Earth. Confirming exactly how the potatoes formed will allow us to understand how planets formed around our sun. Not least, it will solve one of the more enduring mysteries to the planetary science committee.

There have been attempts to explore the moons of Mars already. In 2011, two spacecraft were sent by Russia, but failed miserably in their mission. One of them became stuck in Earth’s orbit and crashed back down onto home soil.

The Mars Moons eXploration mission of 2024 aims to visit the two moons in order to collect samples that will be returned to earth. Perhaps then, we can discover exactly where these two little potatoes originated from. Until that happens, the misshapen moons remain unknown and mysterious in our magnificent solar system.

June 25, 2020July 7, 2020

Planets and Their Moons: New Moon Rising

Ever wondered about all the different moons surrounding nearby planets?

Our solar system is home to 8 major planets (sorry Pluto, we’re still hurting too) but that’s not all. The vast majority of these celestial bodies have their own moons as well. That’s right, we’re not special. Sure, we named our moon, The Moon, but that term simply means an object that is in permanent orbit around a planet.

That’s right. We’re not special. In fact, we’re relatively unusual in the fact that we have only 1 moon. So, in order to put ourselves in our place, let’s have a look at each planet and see what their moons have to say for themselves.

Mercury

That’s right, this is going to be in a logical order or distance from the sun.

Mercury has no moons. Sadly Mercury is just too close to the sun to be able to hold a moon. Sad times for Mercury.

Venus

Once again, no moons. We’re starting to not believe that Earth actually isn’t special at this point.

It is believed that Venus did, once, have a moon but that it collided either into Venus itself or a passing body.

Earth

1 moon. Also known, somewhat arrogantly, as The Moon. Previously thought to be home to The Man in The Moon and often referred to as being made of cheese. Thankfully these — frankly horrifying — concepts have been debunked. We’re all hoping Mr. Musk and NASA gang up soon and get mankind back onto the surface ASAP.

Mars

2 moons! Deimos and Phobos. Theorized amongst astronomers as potentially just being slightly larger asteroids that got caught up on Mars’ gravitational force.

Jupiter

Ok, now we’re talking. As we get into the first of the gas giants the number of moons begins to dramatically increase. Jupiter has at least 79 moons! That is quite the flex on those smaller planets within the asteroid belt!

For the purpose of this piece we won’t list every single moon, rather focus on the big 4 which are visible with the naked eye under dark sky conditions. The big 4 are Ganymede, Callisto, Io, and Europa. Because of their relatively larger size, these 4 have been considered by terraforming theorists as potential settlement bases.

Saturn

Slightly less than Jupiter but still a huge number of moons, Saturn has 62 moons in orbit. Once again, there are 4 moons visible to the naked eye. Titan, Rhea, Iapetus, and Dione.

Special mention goes to the relatively newly photographed Mimas. Mimas is an especially brilliant moon because it has a giant impact crater (called Herschel) on its northern hemisphere which makes it look exactly like the Deathstar from Star Wars. This was first spotted by Cassini back in 2010, and likely gave the observers something of a shock.

Uranus

27 moons here for Uranus. Obvious moon-ing jokes aside, there are 4 noticeably larger moons as with the other gas giants, but these aren’t visible to the naked eye. You’ll need at least an 8-10 inch telescope to see them. Titania , Oberon, Umbriel and Ariel are the largest. Another 4 bodies that have been considered for terraforming.

Neptune

The number reduces again, seemingly in conjunction with the further we get from the Sun, as Neptune rings in only 14 moons. Triton is the only moon of note, which is actually large enough to be considered a dwarf planet. In fact, astronomers believe it may have been captured after ejection from the Kuiper Belt.

Bonus – Pluto

Ok, we still feel bad, so Pluto makes the list. Even if we didn’t feel bad, there’s some merit to adding in Pluto, a dwarf planet stripped of its place in our Solar System, as it has not 1, not 2 but 5 moons! Sure, they’re so small and far away that they can’t be seen using any amateur telescope but that’s still impressive. One of the moons, Charon, is actually considered a dwarf planet itself and part of Pluto’s binary system… which calls into question – is Charon Pluto’s moon, or is Pluto Charon’s moon? The plot thickens…

…we still heart you, Pluto.

June 16, 2020July 7, 2020

How old am I on different planets?

Learn how to calculate your age on different planets.

How old are you right now? That age is going to be fairly integral to who you are as a person and how you identify yourself. They say that age is just a number; indeed, that number is completely different depending upon which planet you reside.

Sure, you might spend your entire life standing only on Earth, but as more and more people become terraformers and settlers of different planets, their ages will become more and more varied. In fact, you might have children older than you and grandparents that are younger! This is especially true if you’re all spread across the whole solar system.

Physically, your body will have spent the same amount of time existing — that’s a constant. But if you calculate your age based on days, or rotations of your planet’s axis, then you’ll find that the number is very different depending on where you call home. The same goes for if you calculate your age in years or the time it takes for your planet to revolve once around the Sun.

Because of this, it’s worth referring to your age in Earth years or Earth days. If we move or were to live on another planet within our solar system, our ages would be completely different. This is down to the amount of time that it takes for the planet to orbit the sun and for each planet to revolve on its axis.

In order to calculate your age on different planets, there’s a specific calculation that you can complete. Thankfully, you don’t need to be a rocket scientist to make these calculations. First, we calculate our age in days on Earth. Let’s say, for instance, that you’re exactly 25 years old — that’s 9,125 days. You’ll then take this information and put it into a new formula dependent on which planet you’d like to live on.

Here’s a handy table with the formulas in place:

Planet	Orbit time	Age Formula
Mercury	88 Days	Earth Days / 88
Venus	225 Days	Earth Days / 225
Mars	687 Days	Earth Days / 687
Jupiter	11.8 Years	Earth Days / 4,307
Saturn	29.4 Years	Earth Days / 10,731
Uranus	84 Years	Earth Days / 30,660
Neptune	164 Years	Earth Days / 59,860
Pluto	248 Years	Earth Days / 90,520

Let’s take a group of people on Earth: Penny, Rich and Hayley. Penny is 35, Rich is 42 and Hayley is 56. Through a program of terraforming and planetary exploration, each of them have been posted to different parts of the solar system. Penny has been sent to Neptune, Rich to Mars, and Hayley to Mercury. Based on their new planets their new ages are now:

Penny (Earth Age 35): Neptune Age – 0.21 Years Old; a mere baby.

Rich (Earth Age 42): Mars Age – 22.31 Years Old; nearly 20 years younger.

Hayley (Earth Age 56): Mercury Age – 232.27 Years Old; well over two centuries old!

As you can see, heading for other planets will have a severe aging process… well, only in number. Physically, you’ll still be as old as you were on Earth.

How old are you on your favourite extra-terrestrial world?

June 11, 2020July 7, 2020

How long are days on the different planets?

Does the length of a day change on each planet?

When it comes to exploring the solar system, there’s a reason that the amount of time spent in space is calculated in hours rather than days. That’s due to the reason that our measurement of time is directly related to our position on Earth and its relation to the Sun. A day on our planet is very different to a day on another planet.

If you’re here for the “too long, didn’t read” answer, then the table below will be helpful. We’ve put together the amount of hours that a day lasts on each planet. That is how long it takes for a complete rotation on the planet’s axis to complete.

Planet	Hours to complete axis rotation (A Day)
Mercury	1,408 hours
Venus	5,832 hours
Earth	24 hours
Mars	25 hours
Jupiter	10 hours
Saturn	11 hours
Uranus	17 hours
Neptune	16 hours

The table might come as something of a surprise. It would be natural to assume that the length of days might increase or decrease depending on distance from the Sun but it appears that it is composition that has a major impact on day length. The gas giants clearly spin at an incredible rate compared to the smaller, solid based planets of Earth and Mars.

It’s also worth noting that the orbits of the planets aren’t perfectly circular and, in fact, Earth’s own elliptical orbit means that some days are shorter than others. Therefore, the best way to measure the length of a day is to use a measurement called sidereal days, or the amount of time it actually takes to complete a whole rotation. On Earth, that’s 23 hours and 56 minutes, rounded to 24 hours to make for easier time calculations.

Notable differences in days

Some of the planets rotations and orbits throw some interesting facts our way. Take Mercury, for instance — if the human race was able to successfully terraform the planet and create a sustainable settlement, day/night would have to become an artificial concept. In fact, over the course of one Mercurian day (sunrise and sunset), there would have been 2 Mercurian years (rotations around the sun).

Similar can be said for Venus, where the length of a day is longer than a year (by 18 days). Factor in Venus’ reverse rotation (compared to Earth) and those living in terraformed settlements would see only 2 sunrises each year — which would also happen with the sun rising in the west and setting in the east.

Looking for further unusual days and years, Uranus tops the class. Thanks to its tipped axis, only one part of the planet is pointed at the Sun over the course of each year. That means that the length of a day on the planet is matched with the length of a season. Terraformers would spend each “day” in a different season, making particularly interesting temperature challenges.

Each of the planets produce interesting and complex challenges when it comes to managing days, nights, seasons and years. It’s these challenges that terraformers will have to cope with when settling our solar system.

May 28, 2020July 7, 2020

The Science of TerraGenesis: Sky Farms

Tech Dive: New Age Sky Farms

When it comes to colonizing and terraforming a new planet, those that are carrying out the heavy lifting and leg work need to eat. The land, especially that of Mars and beyond, might not be suitable for farming, and it might not be suitable for a long time to come. That’s where the Sky Farms of TerraGenesis come in.

The strain put on an ecosystem is at it’s peak when civilizations look to support the people within it. This has to become priority number one. Well, once you have breathable air and water… ok so maybe priority number 3… and then there’s the heat levels… and radiation. Well, no-one said that terraforming would be easy did they?!

Supporting the human population of a colony isn’t straight forward. However, thanks to incredible scientific advances in both hydroponics and zero-G biology the human race is able to look beyond the ground when it comes to growing crops.

Hydroponics and Sky Farms

Hydroponics enable farmers and scientists to harvest nutrients from water and a mineral solution rather than soil, allowing plants to grow in different environments than previously thought possible. Not only that, the water usage is incredibly decreased. Consider that in traditional farming it takes nearly 400 liters of water to grow just 1kg of tomatoes. When using hydroponics this number is drastically reduced to a mere 70 liters of water. This research was initially powered by those in NASA but has been grasped by the various factions of TerraGenesis in their terraforming missions.

Zero-G Farming

The International Space Station provided a great platform for researchers to understand how zero-g conditions affected plant growth, in the same way that it affects human life. Zero-g farming isn’t just about the lack of gravity either. Plants have a hard time in space, especially due to the lack of sunlight, which they need for fuel through photosynthesis. Artificial lighting can replace this, but to maximize efficiency specially designed LEDs need to be used.

As an interesting aside, research into sky farms allowed scientists to uncover a unique device that’s function takes ethylene and converts it into CO2 (carbon dioxide) and water. This could be spectacularly important for lengthy journeys into space.

In order to facilitate the colonisation of a whole planet, or even just a colony for starters, terraformers will need a vast network of these sky farms in orbit. The resource cost might be high, but what price can be put on a well fed workforce?

Sky farms will become incredibly useful during times when water on the surface of the planet isn’t accessible (as it’s frozen) or isn’t available at all. At least for those in the initial terraforming missions, sky farms might well be the only access that they have to get fresh produce in the dark, forbidding world that they’re looking to inhabit.

May 27, 2020July 7, 2020

The Science of TerraGenesis: Orbital Surveyor

Searching out new resources with the orbital surveyor.

Selecting a new colony site isn’t as easy as looking out of the window of your ship and picking a spot at random. There is a whole lot more to it than that. Getting onto the surface of a planet or celestial body to see whether a spot is useful for a colony is both a costly and potentially dangerous mission. Therefore, scientists have developed the orbital surveyor. The terraformer’s way of surveying from a distance.

In order to find the perfect site there are a number of factors that need to meet a set criteria:

The land needs to be large enough to support the colony
It needs to be flat enough for structures to be built
There need to be sufficient natural resources nearby
There needs to be room for expansion as the colony grows

And that’s just for a start. The list goes on. The orbital surveyor, thankfully, delivers reams and reams of information based intricate readings taken through scans of the planet. These scans are carried out by a satellite that maps, graphs and details the surface and below.

Note that it’s not just the topography that is measured but, through powerful laser, UV and newly discovered technology, what lies beneath the surface can be discovered too. That means that valuable natural resources ranging from potential water sources to precious metals and fuel can be surveyed. That means that the guesswork is taken away from mining. It means that terraformers can all but guarantee they’re digging in the right spot to harness what lies beneath.

Terraforming isn’t cheap work, digging for raw materials and precious metals allows factions to create a steady stream of credits to enable purchases of more and more impressive technologies. That makes the positioning of your mines all the more important. Position it over an empty patch of ground and you’ll be digging for nothing, pick the right site, using the orbital surveyor and you’ll be digging in paydirt before you know it.

The orbital surveyor isn’t just a useful resource for mining processes but also useful for understanding how the world that you’re terraforming will change and alter as the terraforming process moves forward. Increases in heat and radiation might lead to the melting of ice caps. That melting will lead to rising sea levels. If you’ve not checked the height of your settlement or outpost correctly using the orbital surveyor then you could be in hot water (literally) before you know it.

The orbital surveyor will be one of the first tools that you’ll use in your terraforming arsenal, but it certainly won’t be the last. Master this tool and you’ll be building suitable, safe outposts and fruitful, functioning mines.

May 26, 2020May 26, 2020

The Science of TerraGenesis: Soletta

Bringing the heat with Soletta.

Heat. It’s a bit of a problem when it comes to creating new colonies and terraforming new worlds, you can’t have too much and you can’t have too little. Thankfully, scientists have created Soletta.

Soletta is a marvel of technological achievement. It allows previously uninhabitable worlds to become habitable, it can change the surfaces of whole worlds and can unlock the potential they may have. Thanks to advanced artificial intelligence and dynamic sensors, Soletta is able to manage and adjust to create the perfect temperature for life not only to exist, but thrive on previously alien worlds.

How does Soletta work?

Earth, our home world, happens to be in the perfect position for life to exist. A few fractions closer or further from the Sun and our planet would look very different. This, therefore, hugely impacts how we can terraform other planets in our solar. Take Venus for example, whilst it’s a prospect for terraforming, the surface temperature is vastly higher than that on Earth and therefore requires cooling. Somewhere like Mars, being further from the sun, requires the opposite.

Soletta works by either dampening or amplifying solar radiation to decrease or increase the energy coming from the Sun. If you were to stand on the surface of a newly terraformed world and looked up, Soletta would appear as a huge circular array of solar sail style mirrors. They are aligned to focus or deflect sunlight which may have been focused or just missed the planet.

The name of the satellite stems from science fiction, namely the works of Kim Stanley Robinson and the work Aurora. Soletta was built, in this instance, to aid the terraforming process on Mars at the start of the 22nd Century.

For a piece of technology this impressive, you can expect to part with a fair piece of capital. Soletta certainly doesn’t come cheap, in TerraGenesis you can expect to pay 50,000,000 credits but the freedom over temperature control that it allows is worth it.

Implementing Soletta

Reflecting vasts swathes of heat across a planet’s surface, or deflecting it, can have dramatic effects. Therefore, it is strongly suggested that you consider the impact that Soletta will have on your whole ecosystem and the colonists within it.

If you have a reasonably stable water supply but use Soletta to increase the planet’s temperature you can expect a fair percentage of that to be evaporated and the stock to be depleted. The same can be said for the opposite, cool the surface too much and the water supply will freeze at the planet’s extremities.

It’s worth considering the other buildings that raise or lower local temperature. Take for instance if you have an Aerostat Platform, it would first cause your temperature to drop, but once the gap between current and temperature becomes too big Soletta’s percentage change becomes stronger and rise the temperature, which narrows the gap and reduces Soletta effectiveness, in a negative feedback loop.

May 25, 2020May 22, 2020

The Science of TerraGenesis: Planetary Defense Network

The Planetary Defense Network, your guard against the perils of space.

The Planetary Defense Network is there to save you and your colonists lives. That is a pretty dramatic way of putting it but is also exactly what it does. Whichever faction you choose to be part of, when terraforming a new world you will want to make sure to invest in this device.

Over 65 million years ago Earth was minding its own business. Happily going about its day with a whole world of fauna, oceans and dinosaurs. That was until a humongous asteroid impacted the surface and changed the course of Earth’s history for ever. The dinosaurs and other life on Earth hadn’t invested in a Planetary Defense Network. Sure, the technology wasn’t there, nor was the concept of space… but if they had invested in one they’d still be here today.

The Planetary Defense Network defends the world you’re terraforming from rogue asteroids, meteors and other dangerous threats to the surface from the depths of space. At the basic level the system tracks and monitors threats as they get near to the terraformed world. At the more engaged level, should a threat be more direct and potentially damaging to your world the planetary defense network will intervene and neutralise the problem.

Ever since 2016 teams of scientists and astronomers have kept a weathered eye on the skies and space around Earth, watching for life threatening celestial issues. When a potential issue is spotted it is logged and then monitored. As of 2019, that catalogue sits around 15,000 logged potential issues, with roughly 1500 added each year. That’s just for Earth, that doesn’t include newly terraformed worlds, worlds which are potentially in an even more dangerous position.

Whilst the Earth bound monitoring system was a useful beginning the question was always asked, “What would happen if one was on an imminent collision course with Earth?”. The answer was pretty grim reading… mankind essentially became extinct.

If you’re after some slightly worrying reading head over to NASA’s own Asteroid Watch website. They regularly post about inbound objects, their size, how close they’ll get to Earth and even the date that they’ll pass. The handy approximate size chart measures in house, bus or plane sizes. Their podcast also shares thoughts such as “What would happen if an asteroid hits the Earth?” and other happy questions. Now if that doesn’t fill you with existential dread then nothing will…

Thankfully, that dread and fear is something of the past for those colonising and terraforming new worlds. With an investment into a Planetary Defense Network your faction and colonists can rest assured that their world is safe. At least from asteroids.

May 24, 2020July 7, 2020

The Science of TerraGenesis: Space Elevator

Space Elevators: Going Up?

What if strapping yourself to a massive rocket, starting a huge explosion and hoping for the best wasn’t the only way of getting into space? What if you were able to use a device that essentially resembled an elevator and caught that into space instead? Seems a whole lot more convenient and safe? Meet Space elevators!

Space elevators in TerraGenesis enable travel to and from the surface of the planet that your faction is terraforming with ease.

What Are Space Elevators?

They are essentially exactly what they say they are. They’re elevators that take people and cargo to and from space. The general idea is that they have an orbital station port that is a semi-permanent structure in space and a long, traversable cable that allows you to travel up and down aligned at the equator of the planet.

This piece of technology, whilst astronomically expensive to initially build, will create a far more cost efficient and environmentally sound method of traveling to space. The initial cost comes from the huge scale of the device. When created, the space elevator will be the largest structure that humans have ever created. It’ll need to be able to reach geostationary orbit, or 35,786km in altitude. That’s a lot of cable.

This isn’t a new concept either. In fact, the idea was first hypothesised back in 1895 by Tsiolkovsky. He proposed the idea that this structure would be built under compression, meaning it supports its weight from below.

Since around 1959, ideas began to spring forward using the concept of tensile structures and centrifugal forces that work together to keep the structure in tension thanks to a counter weight deep in orbit and an anchor on the surface. Whilst this is, thanks to the high gravity levels, is problematic on Earth, on bodies with lower gravitational forces the idea has more potential.

Space Elevator: A Physics Problem

Thanks to the gigantic size of the space elevator there are a few physics issues, that we won’t dive deep into, that need to be overcome. These include:

Ensuring that, what for all intents and purposes is, a massive stick tethered to the surface doesn’t collide with anything.
The cable is able to maintain straightness
The cable is able to hold it’s own weight
The cargo is able to sustain the immense G forces it would undertake whilst moving both vertically and horizontally under differing gravitational forces.

These issues are still theoretical in concept in the 21st century, but scientists are investing time, money and effort into finding a solution to these issues. Thankfully, in TerraGenesis, the factions have overcome these problems and have successfully created space elevators to aid and enable further colonization and terraforming of future, distant worlds.