ATMOSPHERE

The atmosphere on Mars is much different than that of Earth's. It is made of 95% carbon dioxide, 2.7% nitrogen, and 1.6% Argon. On Earth, the atmosphere is made of 77% Nitrogen and 22% Oxygen ("Earth Vs Mars").  In addition to this, Mars' atmosphere is 100 times thinner than Earth's, allowing a great amount of radiation to hit the surface. Although it is so thin, it still supports weather like clouds and winds. Furthermore, Mars is much further from the sun than the earth, allowing the temperatures to drop to extremes. 

(Section By: Jacob Lewis)

          Unlike Earth, Mars lacks an ozone layer that would help it trap any heat and filter out harmful ultraviolet radiation which can be deadly with too much intake. Furthermore, Mars is much further from the sun than the earth, allowing the temperatures to drop to extremes. Any work done outside of the dome would need to be done in a spacesuit. For this reason, creating a biodome would be ideal until future generations can withstand that sort of adaptation. In this biosphere would be where life would most likely be sustained in a similar way to earth as it is meant to mimic our ecosystem.

          We took a lot of inspiration from Biosphere 2, located in Arizona. There would be a heavy saturation of plants inside of this ecosystem in order to be able to produce the oxygen needed to sustain all of these life sources, since like we mentioned, mars was predominantly 95% carbon dioxide. We also need water for survival and we are aware that water can be extracted from the soil on Mars. There are currently ideas brought by Mars One, a small Dutch organization hoping to establish a settlement on Mars about how this extraction can occur. Their ideas include having a rover that will pick up bunches of soil and drop them into a water extractor. The extractor would heat the soil to evaporate the water, keep that water stored, and re-do the process hoping to get any hard-to-get water evaporated and added to the other water storage.

    (Section By: Itzel Valenzuela)

References

"Infographic: Earth versus Mars." News18, 5 Nov. 2013, www.news18.com/news/india/infographic-earth-versus-mars-649040.html . Accessed 1 May 2020.

Sharp, Tim. "Mars' Atmosphere: Composition, Climate & Weather." Space.com, 12 Sept. 2017, https://www.space.com/16903-mars-atmosphere-climate-weather.html. Accessed 1 May 2020.

Arizona State University, M. S. F. (n.d.). Mars Education: Developing the Next Generation of Explorers. Retrieved May 3, 2020, from https://marsed.asu.edu/mep/atmosphere