Mars mission unnecessary?

While Musk is planning his Mars mission, NASA is throwing a wrench in the works.

NASA's Tess mission observed two super-Earths just 33 light years from Earth.

Most of the super-Earths discovered in the past have been more than 100 light years away, and even thousands of light years away.

Now that the super-Earth is "only" 33 light years away, will humans be able to achieve interplanetary migration over Mars?

Mars

In fact, not only Musk, NASA itself would like to go to Mars, because the moon is the only body in space that humans have personally landed on.

The moon is the Earth's only natural satellite, so in a way, it's still within the Earth's gravitational pull, and the human footprint hasn't really left the Earth.

When humans actually land on Mars, we will be off the Earth.

Humans are not obsessed with Mars because it's habitable, but because it's a much harsher environment than Earth.

Mars has a thin atmosphere, so ultraviolet light from the sun shines directly on the Martian landscape, turning Martian rocks into dust as they are bombarded by solar storms.

In addition, because Mars is farther from the sun, less heat can be transferred to it, and its average temperature is minus 60 degrees Celsius, which is equivalent to the coldest temperatures in the North and South Poles.

The gravity on Mars is only about 40 percent of that on Earth, so there will be a certain degree of weightlessness when humans go there.

Humans are not structured to live on Mars for a long time, and will suffer from osteoporosis, blurred vision, muscle wasting and other diseases over time.

The only similarity between Mars and Earth is its rotation period, which is about 24 hours and 37 minutes. A day on Mars is not much different from a day on Earth, so there is no time difference from Earth to Mars.

In terms of hardware configuration, Venus is the most similar to Earth, more similar than Mars, and the distance from Earth is not too far.

So why didn't humans colonize Venus?

The reason lies in the terrible atmosphere of Venus. Mars has a thin atmosphere, while Venus has a dense atmosphere, which contains the most carbon dioxide, which makes the greenhouse effect of Venus very serious. The average temperature of Venus exceeds 400℃, and it stays at this temperature all day and night, and there is no big temperature difference between day and night.

Due to the thick atmosphere, Venus's atmospheric pressure is 92 times that of the Earth, not to mention people, the human launched Venus probe, died shortly after boarding.

Mars is the least difficult planet in the solar system for humans to land on.

That's why humans are so passionate about going to Mars.

In Musk's plan to emigrate to Mars, the first settlers will never return, but even so, countless people have signed up to make history.

The ultimate goal of emigration to Mars is to leave the Earth when it becomes uninhabitable.

Going to Mars is the last resort, so if there's a planet with a climate more similar to Earth's, why wouldn't we choose it?

Super earth

A super-Earth is not meant to be inhabited by super-Saiyans, but an astronomical term.

It's the name for a large Earth-like planet, more massive than Earth but less massive than Neptune.

Super-earth is just a name. It doesn't mean the object is exactly like Earth, nor does it necessarily have life on it.

It's just that anything is possible.

The Tess mission found two super-Earths in our neighboring star system, HD 260655. The two planets are designated planet HD 260655 B and planet HD 260655 C, which we call planet B and C.

Planet B is about 1.2 times the size and twice the mass of Earth; Planet C is about 1.5 times the size of Earth and about three times the mass.

The orbits of the two planets are very short, 2.8 and 5.7 days a year, respectively.

That's because their host star, HD 260655, is a red dwarf, a small star with no more than half the mass of our sun, so they're much smaller.

In general, red dwarfs are single-star systems, meaning they have only one planet. Red dwarfs like HD 260655 with two planets are rare.

Not to mention that both are in the habitable zone, which could potentially be hospitable to life.

As mentioned earlier, super-Earths are not necessarily habitable or hospitable to life. Based on the Earth's mileage, scientists have come up with several characteristics of life-bearing super-Earths.

First of all, it has to be a rocky planet. A gas planet has no land. If humans land on it, they will go all the way to its core, and if its core is 4,000 to 6,000 degrees Celsius like Earth's, they will burn through life.

Second, it has to be in the habitable zone so that it's the right temperature for life.

In general, planets should be cold rather than hot, minus 40 or 50℃ is not a problem, but 40 or 50℃ above zero is a bit dangerous!

Every star's habitable zone is different, depending on the star's mass and size.

To get enough and stable energy, the star around the planet must be in its own main sequence.

If you're in the twilight of a star's life, then the entire galaxy is already dying.

HD 260655 is a red dwarf star with a lifetime of tens of billions of years, so it has a lot of burning left in it.

Moreover, the existence of liquid water on a super-Earth would greatly increase the likelihood of life. That's because liquid water is the source of life.

There are plenty of bodies in the solar system with solid water, such as the poles of Mars, Europa, comets, and the asteroid belt.

But Earth, the only planet with liquid water, also happens to be the only planet with life in the solar system.

Finally, the super-Earth would need a magnetic field to protect itself from cosmic rays. You need an atmosphere to protect you from the radiation from the stars.

Oxygen is not necessary for super-Earths to have life, because Earth didn't have oxygen to begin with.

Life appeared on Earth about 3.8 billion years ago, and free oxygen only emerged 2.6 billion years ago.

The fact that life could have existed for a billion years without oxygen suggests that oxygen was not the key to life.

So if a super-Earth meets these conditions, does that mean it could be a future colony?

Unfortunately, no!

Super-Earths

The limits of Super-Earths

It would be even scarier to immigrate to Super-Earth than to Mars.

First, super-Earths are too far away.

Take the B and C planets of HD 260655 for example, they are 33 light years away from the Earth, although they are found to be relatively small super-Earth, but this distance is still impossible for human beings to reach the existence.

Even if human beings achieve the speed of light, it will take 33 years to fly, a generation of time has passed.

Unless you open any door, you go straight to HD 260655, which involves wormhole technology.

Second, because the mass of super Earth is larger than the earth, the acceleration of gravity is often greater than the earth, normal human height in the above is a kind of pressure, or people will be compressed, the longer the shorter, or directly die of body collapse.

So scientists think that if the so-called aliens came from super-Earth, they would probably be shorter than Earth.

Third, there are too many uncertainties about the super-Earth. What if there is life on it, but it is not in the same system as human life, will it attack us?

Or are they inherently harmful to humans?

By contrast, Musk's ongoing plans to colonize Mars seem easier to achieve than landing on a super-Earth.

NASA has found two super-Earths 33 light-years away, but it's still betting on Musk for extraterrestrial migration.

Mars may not be the best place to settle, but it's the best place we can find.

But this does not mean that emigration to Mars is a simple matter. The biggest difficulty for humans is how to establish a suitable ecosystem for human habitation on Mars.

The failure of the Biosphere 2 experiment in the 1980s showed the unrepeatability of the Earth's ecology.

People who have left the earth are like fish who have left the water. There is no other way but to struggle.