Monday, October 30, 2023

The Core: Martian edition

Last week NASA InSight put more constraints on Mars' innards. The core is molten, which we knew; blanketing it, is a sheath of melted silicate. Glass, I guess.

Anyway ToughSF calculated how to restart this dynamo: 2e28 joules. 195 billion B41 fusion bombs, down the mohole. Um. CLARIFICATION 6/27/24 Wouldn't this assume a solid core under it all?

Better ideas come from the comments: lensing, for about an hour and a half; or pushing asteroids into an elliptic orbit. That latter might start with Phobos which is, you know, already there, and we gotta get rid of it anyway. CybertechDan is more thinking a hundred km diameter Luna-like; Phobos is only eleven. So just move a S-type rock that's in the 90s km diameter down to intersect Mars and crash Phobos... bro.

Apparently this is a slow day for news.

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