Washington: After the European Space Agency (ESA) discovered liquid water under the southern polar ice cap, scientists are now planning to grow plants on Mars.
In order to grow plants on the Red planet, researchers have suggested that carbon dioxide (CO2) content needs to be increased and temperatures have to be raised, WION reported.
However, these conditions cannot be created in the “tropics” of Mars.
“Surprisingly, the conditions that allow plant growth do not occur first within the tropics (±25°) but in the Hellas Basin region. A further increase in the greenhouse effect expands the area suitable for plant growth in the southern hemisphere,” the research study stated.
Robert Olszewski, professor at Warsaw University of Technology in Poland, is leading the plan to grow trees on Mars.
Olszewski and his team simulated different processes on Mars using Viking Mars lander temperature and pressure datasets created in the 1970s.
“Here, we use the baseline model to investigate the greenhouse effect caused by an increase in CO2 plus artificial greenhouse warming,” said Olszewski in a paper presented at an “Astrobiology and the Future of Life Meeting” organised at the Lunar and Planetary Institute in Houston, Texas.
“The atmospheric conditions existing on Mars today make the existence of life impossible. The requirements for plant growth on Mars have been considered in the context of terraforming and for low-pressure greenhouses,” said Olszewski.
“Temperature is the fundamental environmental variable that changes during terraforming and it controls the CO2 cycle and the formation of liquid water,” added Olszewski.
“Focusing on the temperature, it must be several tens of degrees higher, while the diurnal fluctuations should be much lower. For the growth of trees, the growing season must last at least 110 sols (Martian days),” he said.