A group of scientists have devised a plan to make Mars a little more hospitable to human life.

A computer modeling experiment suggests that we can use a spacecraft to create a magnetic field around Mars, shielding it from the solar wind that’s stripping its thin atmosphere away, oxygen ion by oxygen ion.

If the plan works — and that’s a big “if,” it could melt the red planet’s polar ice caps to bring back some liquid water to the Martian surface for the first time in billions of years. 

“It has been estimated that nearly one-seventh of the ancient ocean of Mars is trapped in the frozen polar cap,” the abstract for the proposal, which was presented at NASA’s Planetary Science Vision 2050 Workshop last week, reads.  Read more…

More about Nasa Earth Observatory, Solar Wind, Space Exploration, Magnetic Field, and Mars
Source: Mashable