• Question: what would happen if you step foot on mars

    Asked by pepe to Sheila, Piyush, Natalia, Gary, Dimitar on 9 Nov 2018.
    • Photo: Gary Munnelly

      Gary Munnelly answered on 9 Nov 2018:

      That depends.

      If you weren’t wearing appropriate equipment, then you would probably suffocate due to the poor atmosphere on Mars.

      If you were wearing appropriate equipment, then you could go explore the planet, which would be very interesting I’m sure.

      There is a book called “The Martian” that was written by a guy named Andy Weir. It’s about an astronaut who gets stranded on Mars and needs to survive. The author did a ton of research to make sure his scenarios were realistic, so if you want a really good (fictitious) account of how you might possibly survive if you were stranded on Mars, read that book.

      Don’t watch the film! I mean, the film is good, but the book actually tries to explain the science stuff. There is a bit with computers and compression problems about 1/4 of the way through which is very, very accurate and actually uses real commands that I would use in my day-to-day research.

    • Photo: Dimitar Shterionov

      Dimitar Shterionov answered on 11 Nov 2018:

      If you are in a space suit you would be able to walk there. The gravity of Mars is just above 1/3 of Earth’s gravity would allow you to jump much higher and longer. This means that you would also weigh less than on Earth.

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