What's Sunlight Like on Mars?
Not as favorable as it is on Earth. Here's why...
There’s a lot of talk about colonizing Mars.
The gerund colonizing is itself outdated and shameful, but even if we roll with such a verb (which we really shouldn’t), let’s talk about sunlight on Mars and how it compares to sunshine on Earth.
What would it be like for humans to live with Martian sunlight?
Since Mars is further away, sunlight is less luminous there. Sunlight on Mars is about 44% of Earth’s sunlight. This means that the Sun doesn’t shine that brightly on Mars. This is not good news for human life. Why?
We depend on sunlight to feel happy, energized, and have strong immune systems. Less sunlight means all of these essential human capacities would be weakened in a Martian landscape.
With less sunlight, we would produce less seratonin (the happy hormone and neurotransmitter), receive less vitamin D from the Sun, and have less energy. Humans on Mars would have to substitute the beneficial effects of sunlight on Earth with artificial mechanisms, constantly and at a cost, of course.
Let’s not forget about food. Less sunlight (let’s not even mention water) means lower crop yields, too. As a result, we would need more energy to produce food, meaning it would very likely be much costlier to produce food on Mars.
Mars’ atmosphere is also dustier, so light is not as clear as it is on Earth, but is rather scattered — think pixelated. Who in this world even values sunlight’s high-res on Earth?
So when someone mentions “colonizing Mars” again, wondrous though it may sound and may be for reasons such as interstellar mining, let’s consider it’s not as simple for human wellbeing as it sounds. It sounds like a planet more suitable for robots than humans. Could this be the plan?
Colonization has never been positive news, except for kings, queens, and their courts. Historically, there’s a very narrow relationship between colonization and robbery… don’t you think?
Stay tuned,
Eva Sky Wymm