Space/Science — HabitableZone

Space/Science » in reply to Earth-Mars

Re: Earth-Mars

Wow, that's alot of radiation.
Unlike Earth, those radiation levels in orbit wouldn't be much less than on the Martian surface. I'm a bit confused about what kinds of radiation they are talking about:

"Averaged over this time period, about 10 percent of the dose equivalent at Mars is due to solar particles, although a 30 percent contribution from solar particles was seen in July 2002, when the sun was particularly active."

If solar particles are generally only 10 percent; does that include GCR? And if it includes GCR then why is there so much solar radiation? [Solar particles are blocked by the Earth's Magnetosphere (as are the GCR) the remaining solar radiation isn't significantly blocked. Mars distance should significantly reduce this "remaining solar radiation, but because of the lack of a magnetosphere, Mars would receive more solar particles (and GCR). Also Mars' distance from the Sun reduces the the reduction in GCR from the Sun magnetosphere thereby increaseing GCR at Mars distance in comparison to Earth distance.]
I wonder if this difference is due mostly to how big Earth is from ISS in comparison to how big Mars is to Odyssey? And if so then the difference is largely to due to the blocking affect of the solid Earth- Earth is much bigger from 200 miles than compared with 100 miles from Mars. Another way of saying this is that the total daytime in orbit around Mars should be longer than total daytime in orbit around Mars. Therefore a useful comparison would be to know the average amount of radiation per hour daytime for both Earth and Mars.

Log in or register to post.

The whole thread (5 posts)