More questions about Mars...

[majornature]

<p>Earth has close to 7 billion people occupying the planet.</p><p>&nbsp;First question:&nbsp; If the sun swell up and the people of earth were forced to migrate to mars, can 7 billion people live on mars?</p><p>Second question:&nbsp; Although the martian interior is a big unknown, does mars have plate tectonic activity?&nbsp; Or is it too cool?</p> <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <font size="2" color="#14ea50"><strong><font size="1">We are born.  We live.  We experiment.  We rot.  We die.  and the whole process starts all over again!  Imagine That!</font><br /><br /><br /><img id="6e5c6b4c-0657-47dd-9476-1fbb47938264" style="width:176px;height:247px" src="http://sitelife.space.com/ver1.0/Content/images/store/14/4/6e5c6b4c-0657-47dd-9476-1fbb47938264.Large.jpg" alt="blog post photo" width="276" height="440" /><br /></strong></font> </div>

 

[neilsox]

<p><BR/>Replying to:<BR/><DIV CLASS='Discussion_PostQuote'>Earth has close to 7 billion people occupying the planet.&nbsp;First question:&nbsp; If the sun swell up and the people of earth were forced to migrate to mars, can 7 billion people live on mars?Second question:&nbsp; Although the martian interior is a big unknown, does mars have plate tectonic activity?&nbsp; Or is it too cool? <br />Posted by majornature</DIV></p><p>It is unlikely our sun will swell enough in the next billion years, to require evacuation of Earth. In a billion plus years, the population of intelegent earthlings will likely be lots more or lots less than 7 billion. With very advanced technology, billions of beings can survive on Mars, but it is difficult to be optimistic, as Mars has lots of problems, any one of which could make a self sufficient colony difficult. On the plus side, Earth's surface is covered 70% by water, so Mars has almost as much dry land as Earth.</p><p>Mars likely does not, presently nor in a billion years, have tetonic plates. I doubt that our indirect methods of measuring the core temperature of Mars are reliable.&nbsp;&nbsp; Neil</p>

 

[qso1]

<p>Hopefully for humanity, by the time the sun swells up...humanity will already populate a percentage of planets within our galaxy. Mars will probably sustain humans that have long since colonized it, but the sun swelling may threaten mars as well as earth. Just not to as high a degree.&nbsp;</p> <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p><strong>My borrowed quote for the time being:</strong></p><p><em>There are three kinds of people in life. Those who make it happen, those who watch it happen...and those who do not know what happened.</em></p> </div>

 

[duck_theory]

A recent development says that Mars may have active volcanos after all. This could indicate a small level of plate tectonics. I believe this research is in a very early stage. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <span style="font-style:italic" class="Apple-style-span"><span style="color:#c0c0c0" class="Apple-style-span">It is by will alone I set my mind in motion.</span></span> </div>