Planetary Atmospheres - Science topic

Terraforming Mars has captured the imagination of scientists, engineers, and space enthusiasts alike. Traditional proposals involve timescales of centuries and even millennia to revitalize Mars. In this discussion, let's explore various approaches with a special focus on methods that could accelerate the process. One such approach, explained in my latest preprint involves creating dayside magnetic reconnection events at the Mars-Sun L1 point to speed up atmospheric building and surface warming. I would love to hear your feedback and discuss other promising techniques for rapidly transforming Mars. Keep in mind that when I use the word 'terraforming,' I do not necessarily mean that we could walk around outside without suits, but rather kickstart the planet by building its atmosphere, partially melting the ice caps, heating the surface, raising water from the bedrock, etc., and initiating noticeable and significant progress. Let’s discuss diverse ideas and strategies that could make Mars a home for future generations faster than previously imagined.

How do you think very different forms of life might exist on distant exoplanets relative to the life forms we know?

Given what we know and what we don't know about the cosmos, how different do you think life forms might be on distant exoplanets relative to the known life forms found on planet Earth?

Considering how different environmental, climatic, geological conditions, the composition of elements and inorganic and possibly also organic compounds, etc. on distant exoplanets may be under many or even all of the categories known to us, how different life forms may exist on these other planets located many millions of light years from our solar system?

According to some astrophysicists, what we do not know about the cosmos is estimated to be 96 per cent. Included in this is, for example, the essence of dark matter beyond the Universe as we know it and dark matter causing the expansion of the Universe as we know it. Life in its essence is defined in an ambiguous way. Depending on whether the definition refers only to life forms found on planet Earth or to possible other life forms that may exist on distant exoplanets, the definition of life is not necessarily the same.

Depending on what role the billions-of-years-long process of evolution of life forms on planet Earth has played in the development of life forms and the resolution of the question of the randomness of the emergence of life on different exoplanets or the intentionality of the evolutionary process aimed, for example, at the to the creation of more and more complex forms of life, forms of life increasingly adaptable to specific, changing environmental conditions of a specific exoplanet, increasingly better adapted to different environments, and to the possibly intentional or accidental bringing about of intelligent beings, including beings forming organised civilisations, changing the environment of the planet and aiming at space exploration, colonisation of other exoplanets similar to their home planet. These eventualities to be resolved that have not been resolved are many. Consequently, defining the essence of life in the context of possibly other extraterrestrial life forms on many exoplanets is not uniform. In the context of potential completely other, unknown forms of extraterrestrial life that probably occur on many distant exoplanets, life can be defined as a process of spontaneous, self-contained, independent, organised processing of matter based on energy acquired from the environment and forming, through this process, more complex structures of specific chemical compounds, elements of matter available on a specific planet and adapting to the more or less variable environment of the planet, etc. It is likely that many questions will be answered when the first evidence of the existence of other forms of extraterrestrial life occurring on many distant exoplanets emerges. There are already more than 5 500 confirmed existing exoplanets, and there is already fragmentary information about another 9 000, also suggesting their existence. This knowledge has been building up very rapidly over the past decade or so. On some of Jupiter's moons, there are deep water oceans many kilometres deep beneath the icy crust, in which specific but as yet unknown chemical compounds and perhaps certain other forms of life exist. For example, there are planets in our Solar System with largely different environments to planet Earth. For example, the atmosphere of Venus contains mainly sulphuric acid. But does this rule out the existence of some firm, less organised, procariot-type life forms. Not necessarily.

In view of the above, I address the following questions to the esteemed community of scientists and researchers:

What do you think about this topic?

What is your opinion on this subject?

Please respond,

I invite you all to discuss,

Counting on your opinions, on getting to know your personal opinion, on an honest approach to the discussion of scientific issues and not the ready-made answers generated in ChatGPT, I deliberately used the phrase "in your opinion" in the question.

The above text is entirely my own work written by me on the basis of my research.

I have not used other sources or automatic text generation systems such as ChatGPT in writing this text.

Copyright by Dariusz Prokopowicz

Thank you very much,

Best regards,

Dariusz Prokopowicz

Will the manned space mission to Mars planned for the 2030s be mainly a technological race between superpowers, like the manned mission to the Moon in the 1970s, or will it rather be an international research mission to explore the possibility of establishing a permanent exploration base and possibly also the future colonisation of Mars?

Apart from this, one key research question that is not and probably still may remain unanswered for many years to come is the following:

Did rivers and seas exist on Mars millions of years ago and in them and perhaps next to them perhaps various forms of life existed?

Perhaps getting a clear answer to this question will require a manned space mission and the establishment of a permanent research base on Mars.

What is your opinion on this?

What is your opinion on this subject?

Please reply,

I invite you all to discuss,

Thank you very much,

Thank you,

Warm regards,

Dariusz Prokopowicz

Currently, sent probes to the planet Mars can provide valuable information. Based on these new information, it will be possible to get answers to particularly important questions.

The most interesting information that can really be obtained during flights to Mars is primarily the answer to the following questions:

- was there any life on Mars?

- if YES is in what forms this life occurred?

- Was there any water, lakes and rivers on Mars?

- Has there ever been a similar or somewhat different atmosphere on Mars, what was its chemical composition?

- whether there were climatic and natural zones similar to Earths on Mars?

e.t.c.

In view of the above, I would like to ask you: What else can you explore on the planet Mars and what questions do you get?

Please, answer, comments. I invite you to the discussion.

Once the ices of comets sublimate, where do they move to, and with which equations do you describe their motion in the interplanetary medium?

Similarly, where do the gases that are stripped from the atmospheres of rocky planets go, and how do we model the interaction of these gas molecules?

How is the interaction of these gas molecules with solar radiation modeled to predict their motion?

Question: since the findings of unmanned missions are many times what are gained by manned space missions why does the public care less about unmanned missions (which cost much less and go farther into space)?

How can the major findings of unmanned space missions be made more of interest?

I am a third year Mechanical Engineering student from Sardar Vallabhbhai National Institute of Technology Surat, India. I am interested in pursuing higher studies in the field of space sciences, in particular study of planetary hydrodynamics, astrophysical plasma and electrical activities in planetary atmospheres.

I am looking for universities as I want to pursue higher studies and a career in the field mentioned above. Please give your suggestions and recommendations in the following format.

Name of university

Location

Research group, associated research (current, past and future prospects)

Admission criterion

Website

Cloud morphology and cloud movements are often associated with nature of flow in a planetary atmosphere both locally and globally. They have us an inference about the atmospheric circulation.

Atmospheric transport processes are associated with both molecular dispersion and bulk transport of mass, momentum and energy.

Turbulence is associated with chaotic behavior of fluids in motion. In this regard, I would like to ask what are the effects of turbulent flow on the cloud morphology, both at macroscopic scales (i.e. features observable to naked eyes) and microscopic domain (aerosol and ion transport).

I read some texts on the nature of turbulence, and Kolmogorov scales. Is there any way to possibly estimate the effect, both in qualitative and quantitative manner?

I am looking for sources to learn about the computational methods applied to study atmospheric sciences. I have been learning computational fluid dynamics i.e. finite element and finite difference methods. Where should one start if one wants to study and get a good hold over the computational approach?

I have come across many statistical methods to study rarified medium and radiation matter interactions. Can anyone suggest a few sources regarding the same?

Fundamentally, we can address the key initial parameters in planetary formation, dynamics, and evolution as being astrophysical in nature. These astrophysical parameters lead to specific geologic and atmospheric conditions of every planet or moon. In a search for the most fundamental quantities that determine the characteristics of a planetary surface and atmosphere, I have devised the attached categories and list of parameters. My question is, which of these are the most fundamental and influential to the evolution of a planet or moon? Has the magnitude of importance of these fundamental quantities been tested? Most importantly: what mostly dictates how a planet become its unique set of conditions? Some qualities are guaranteed to be more imprint in some scenarios than in others, but which are the most common, and how do they manifest together into a unique planetary body? For example: changes in what parameters lead to what different planetary outcomes?

Suppose a CME has occurred. How will we know whether it will reach Earth? If Earth is on one side of the sun and the CME occurs on the other side of the Sun, it will not affect the Earth. So how does one find out whether Earth was in the way of a CME? OR some other planet, like Venus? Are there any websites which provide this information? What is the extent of a CME?

I'm trying to apply the method of liu-liang 2010 [1]. They use potential temperature difference between 20mb and 5mb above surface and a threshold of 1K for land and 0.2K for ocean and ice. But in my situation, the location of interest (Istanbul, Turkey) is between 2 sea and, in my opinion, can not be classified either as land or ocean. So, I think that I need to choose different threshold for stability classification near surface. Is there someone that is familiar with boundary layer meteorology and can point me to the right direction on this issue? I actually prefer answers from someone that is familiar especially with this article.

1- Liu and Liang, 2010, Observed Diurnal Cycle Climatology of Planetary Boundary Layer Height

for atmosphere profiling

Simply, I’m looking for papers that gives me knowledge about any models or assumption concerning the thickness of troposphere of Early Atmosphere, e.i. during the Neo-, Meso- and PaleoProterozoic?

Thanks in advance, Zbyszek

Hi, does anyone know a good source for vertical atmospheric profiles of the main species for Venus (molar fractions of CO2, N2, SO2 vs height), from 0 to 100 km? It can be both measurements and model results.

Thanks a lot in advance! -Andi

At low obliquity Martian CO2 atmosphere becomes very thin (most of it is trapped at the poles). Trace gases remaining in this thin atmosphere are more strongly affected by energetic solar events and their rate of escape from the atmosphere increases.

None of the planets in the solar system have an atmosphere similar to the Earth’s. Of course, all planets are orbiting at different distances from the Sun, and, therefore, the atmospheres of different planets formed at different temperatures. Apparently, just this factor was of principal importance for the Earth’s atmosphere composition. The essence of the question seeks to reveal the mechanisms that influenced and led to the manifestation and composition of Earth’s contemporary atmosphere.

I'm looking to accurately predict the amount of solar radiation available at a given point on the earth. I've already implemented NREL's SPA algorithm, which gives me a fantastically accurate incidence angle for any panel I should choose to model. The problem however, is that the angular attenuation of solar radiation is of almost no importance to me.

Assuming that the panel is on an active frame, it will always be more or less perpendicular to the incoming solar radiation. The intensity clearly attenuates as the rays go through more atmosphere, but I can't find a good way to approximate this without going down to the level of Beer's law and modelling the earth's atmosphere.

I assume this is a pretty common problem. Could anyone point me towards a paper that includes such a calculation, or a decently accurate rule of thumb?

The PDS (planetary data system) node repository provides the informations collected by the different space missions on the planets time to time.

I want to use some of the data from their site. The data is in the format of .dat file and its label is contained in .lbl file. The label file probably contains the informations about how to write a programme for decoding the file to read the data contained in the same.

Also please suggest me the best suitable tools to use the data.