Dry Ice Could Help Provide Energy To Human Colonies On Mars

There have been talks and plans of human beings going to Mars and colonizing it. It sounds ambitious and perhaps it could be a new planet for us to inhabit in the distant future, although the more pressing questions right now would be how could we sustain ourselves while on Mars? There are no power plants to provide electricity, batteries could theoretically run out, and while we suppose solar energy is one possibility, recent studies have found that dry ice is a possible candidate.

Given that dry ice is in abundance on Mars, scientists from Northumbria, Edinburgh, and Newcastle have theorized that it could be what powers human colonies on Mars in the future. The principle behind it is called the Leidenfrost effect and is similar to how a drop of water reacts when placed on a hot stove and the energy from that could provide enough energy for the human colonies on the red planet.

According to Dr. Rodrigo Ledesma-Aguilar who is one of the co-authors of the research paper, “By placing water droplets and small blocks of dry ice on top of hot, turbine-like surfaces, we have used the Leidenfrost effect to create rotational motion. The turbines channel the released vapor, whose flow in turn drives the levitating surface above to rotate.”

In fact if you check out the video above, you can see what they are talking about in the demonstration. So what does this mean? It means that in the future, trips to Mars by humans might not necessarily have to be a one-way trip as there could be enough energy generated and harvested to help power ships to travel back and forth between the planets.

Tyler Lee
Categories: General
Tags: Science