Colonization of Mars | Artificial Magnetic Field / Shield for Mars

For many years scientists are facing the challenges that may come in front of  us while colonizing Mars, one of them, a major challenge that may come into scene is that Mars doesn't have its Magnetic Field as earth and many planet have. Thus, Solar Radiation is striking the Mars crust directly by tearing its atmosphere, Now the Question is ...

How can any person be alive in presence of such a heavy radiation..? And the solution is..

ARTIFICIAL MAGNETIC FIELD

An Enthusiastic Hello to everyone, Today we are going to discuss how can we create a Magnetic Field for a Planet artificially. For creating artificial magnetic field for mars, we must have to understand two concepts i.e.

• Electromagnet
• Lagrange Orbit or Lagrange Point

Electromagnet-: By assuming that we all are science geeks, I suppose we all have enough knowledge about Electromagnets and Working of Electromagnets, but here we don't need just a simple Electromagnet, we need to renovate it by just changing two things from simple electromagnet i.e.

• We have to make it as big and huge so that it can produce a magnetic field which can cover the area as big as a planet (or say, the planet Mars).
• Another thing is that, the design of electromagnet should be suitable for solar panel attached to it as a Power Source.

This would make the design a little bit complex but by applying these changes we have now created an electromagnet for use as a Satellite in the space.

Lagrange Point or Lagrange Orbit-: This concept is for those who suppose themselves a real physicist, so for understanding Lagrange point again we must need to understand two concepts-:

• Orbiting speed at different distances from the sun.
• Equilibrium condition for gravity between two bodies in the space.

Orbiting Speed at different distances from the Sun-: The closer any planet to Sun, faster it is revolving around the Sun (or say, orbiting the sun), which means any object or satellite orbiting the sun will be slowing down as it increases the distance from the sun till it approaches apogee and increasing its speed as it moves closer to sun till it approaches perigee.

(note-: Every place I mention the term 'Speed' , its about Angular speed).

Equilibrium condition for gravity between two bodies in the space-: Imagine, a sun and a mars in the space at a particular distance as shown in following figure...

Sun is bigger than the mars in size, correspondingly, the value of gravity is more for the Sun than the Mars, sun's gravity covers large distance than the mars as shown in figure...

I took four points A,B,C, and D throughout the distance between sun and mars, so what do you think, if we put four satellites at each points, what would be direction of motion of each satellite, have a look on the figure...

• At point A, i.e. closest to the sun, probably you would say that sun's gravity is higher at this point, so the satellite fall towards sun.

• At point B, i.e. also closer to the sun, as we can see in the figure, it also lies in the sun's gravity field lines, So, probably we can say that it will also fall towards the sun.

• At point D, i.e. closest to mars, here the affect of mars gravity is more than the sun, so the satellite will fall  towards mars.

• If we talk about point C, at this point both object's gravity will be, we can say, in Equilibrium or Balanced. at this point, any object feels the equal pull from the both side.

We can easily understood it by example of balancing a stick on our finger, when we try to balance a stick with our finger we have to adjust it so that weight of stick can be balanced from both side of your finger, the same is  happening here at point C force of gravity is balanced...

However, this point is closer to sun then the mars but if we put a satellite here it will move at the same angular speed as the mars, it will not orbit the sun faster than mars as we have discuss above about Orbiting Speed. Thus the satellite at this point will just stick to its place.

Credit-: NASA

There are five different locations or points in the space where the gravity is in equilibrium or balanced, for any combinations of two objects (one should be orbiting the other like Sun and Earth, Sun and Jupiter, Earth and Moon etc). These points are known as Lagrange Points.

   Lagrange Point may be define as the point in space where the combination of gravitational forces of two large bodies equalize the centrifugal force felt by third much smaller body.

There are five different Lagrange points named L1, L2, L3, L4 and L5. Point L1, L2, and L3 are unstable points and located in straight line made by two large bodies, where L1 is in between two bodies, L2 is behind the smaller body(mars) and L3 is behind large body(sun).

L4 and L5 are stable point and located at the point which makes an equilateral triangle with the two bodies where L4 is leading the orbit and L5 is lagging the orbit.

Our main purpose is using L1 point. Although it is an unstable orbit, So if we put a satellite in L1 point it will move out from it after some time, So we have to give a thrust in a pattern of time to adjust it's position.

Now, suppose if we put that Electromagnetic Satellite in L1 Lagrange point, it will create a huge Magnetic field between the Sun and Mars that will cover the whole planet and work as a shield to protect mars from solar radiation, just like in the following image.

Credit-: NASA

   This is how we can create an Artificial Magnetic Field for Mars. Share your thoughts on the topic in Comment box, Must Subscribe us to know about more interesting topics, and most important if you have a friend who is also a science geek, must Share it with him/her...