What if we nuke Mars?

They would trap the heat from the Sun and slowly melt the ice, creating lakes and rivers and ultimately making the place Earth-like. Ice caps on the Mars' poles contain CO2, so maybe melting them is a good first step?
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What happens if Mars gets nuked?

The explosion would cause dust and debris to get kicked up into the atmosphere. Mars' high wind speed will keep it there for years, blocking out the Sun, just like the mass extinction of the dinosaurs. This causes the temperature on the surface to plummet!
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Can you terraform Mars with nukes?

Elon Musk explained that we could terraform Mars by exploding nuclear bombs over its polar caps. He had said that the radiation wouldn't be an issue since the explosion would be in space over the poles, but the heat release would vaporize the frozen carbon dioxide to greenhouse warm the planet and melt the water ice.
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How many nukes would it take to nuke Mars?

If we were to try and melt Mars' ice caps with nuclear bomb-based artificial suns, that would mean building, launching, and detonating 1,728 bombs per pole every day, without fail, for a total of 3,456 bombs. For perspective, that's nearly twice as many bombs as the U.S. currently has in its entire arsenal.
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What would happen if we nuked Jupiter?

In short: Nuking Jupiter won't do much. As you correctly noted, there is definitely not enough oxygen in Jupiter's atmosphere to support combustion, so the bomb would not ignite the hydrogen.
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What If We Nuked Mars?



Can Mars core be restarted?

Conclusion: No. It doesn't matter the current state of Mars' core, or if it is even possible to 'restart' it to the point that it will generate a protective magnetic field. It is not feasible add that much heat with nuclear weapons, nor is it feasible by hitting Mars with the Moon. It's not going to happen.
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Is nuking Mars a good idea?

In theory, yes. Nuking Mars 101: The quickest way to melt martian ice is to detonate nuclear weapons above the poles which would release enough energy to melt them. There is a caveat, though: there is simply not enough CO2 to kick-start a global warming.
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What if we sent a nuke to the sun?

It's safe to say the nuclear bomb will have no effect at all. But actually it's even harder than that to perturb the sun. The nuclear bomb would be vaporised long before it reached the surface. It could be detonated in space somewhere near the sun.
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Can we warm Mars up?

Turning Up the Heat on Mars

Scientists have considered placing Mylar disks, with a diameter of 155 miles and a weight of 200,000 tons, to reflect sunlight onto Mars and heat the surface. The idea is that over many years, the rise in temperature would release greenhouse gasses.
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Why does Elon Musk want to nuke Mars?

He wants to ignite nuclear bombs at Mars' poles with the ambition of terraforming the planet, making the Red Planet liveable for humans. The fast method is to release thermonuclear weapons over the poles according to Musk that could make Mars habitable for settlers by heating it with greenhouse gases.
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How will Elon Musk terraform Mars?

Elon Musk explained that we could terraform Mars by exploding nuclear bombs over its polar caps. He had said that the radiation wouldn't be an issue since the explosion would be in space over the poles, but the heat release would vaporize the frozen carbon dioxide to greenhouse warm the planet and melt the water ice.
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How does Elon Musk warm up Mars?

Theoretically, SpaceX would warm up Mars by blasting both poles of the planet with pulsing nuclear missiles to create tiny artificial suns that would warm the planet and induce an Earth-like atmosphere, Musk said at an event in 2015, according to the Verge.
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Is terraforming Mars possible?

So can we do it? The short answer is no. Using data from rovers and spacecrafts that have been monitoring Mars, the team in the study identified all of the planet's possible reservoirs of carbon dioxide and their potential contributions to the atmosphere.
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Can you start a fire on Mars?

We know that fire can only burn naturally on our planet, and Mars doesn't have a dense atmosphere or enough oxygen to allow flames to burn – but space station and spacecraft fires are a very real danger, and with crews living and working in close proximity, fire would be disastrous.
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What would happen if we nuked Yellowstone?

What's more, this earthquake occurred not above, but next to Yellowstone's largely solid magma body, so most of the earthquake's energy was transmitted directly into the rock. In a nuclear attack, the detonation would occur above ground, so the majority of the energy would be released into the air.
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How many nukes will end the world?

This is why another study had been conducted in 2018 testing a similar scenario that also concluded that it would take 100 nuclear bombs to end this world. What is scarier is that within this world there are 13,080 ready-to-use nuclear warheads and yet it takes such a small amount.
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Would a nuke explode in space?

The Effect of Nuclear Weapons, U. S. Department of Defense, published by the Atomic Energy Commission, June 1957. If a nuclear weapon is exploded in a vacuum-i. e., in space-the complexion of weapon effects changes drastically: First, in the absence of an atmosphere, blast disappears completely.
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How quickly can we terraform Mars?

Depending on whom you talk to, terraforming could take anywhere from 50 years to 100 million years to complete. The surface might one day look like our own Earth. It could also resemble a massive metropolis with people unable to live outside of domes or other manmade structures for hundreds of years.
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How many nukes would it take to make Mars habitable?

Say, anyone know where a guy can get those? Elon Musk's ambitious "Nuke Mars" plan could require at least 10,000 nuclear missiles. Oh yeah?
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Is Mars cold or hot?

Is Mars red hot? Mars may look hot, but don't let its color fool you -- Mars is actually pretty cold! In orbit, Mars is about 50 million miles farther away from the Sun than Earth. That means it gets a lot less light and heat to keep it warm.
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Why don't we terraform Mars?

The planet's lack of a protective magnetic field means the solar wind will continue stripping its atmosphere and water, reverting our changes to Mars or constantly degrading them. To truly terraform Mars, we would need to fix its magnetic field—or lack thereof.
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Can Mars be revived?

Mars is thought to have been warm in the past (due to evidence of liquid water on the surface) and terraforming would make it warm again. At these temperatures oxygen and nitrogen would escape into space much faster than they do today.
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Is Mars hot inside?

Overall, Mars is cold—its average global temperature is around -80 degrees Fahrenheit—and has a much thinner atmosphere than Earth. Because it has about a sixth of the pressure of Earth's atmosphere, the planet doesn't retain heat very long, causing temperatures to drop quickly.
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