Reigniting Araxes’ Magnetosphere

Reigniting Araxes’ Magnetosphere

About a billion years ago, Araxes still had a functioning Magnetosphere, solar radiation on the surface was much more tolerable.

There was also lower temperatures, a thicker atmosphere, higher oxygen content, and even liquid water on the surface which at one points covered half of the planet.

Sadly, without some external stimulus, the rotation of the planet’s core and mantle began to slow down and the dynamo effect was severely reduced. Subsequently the atmosphere depleted, the oceans dried up, and almost all surface life went extinct. Even now, 95% of Araxes’ biosphere is subterrestrial.

Araxes has several plans to restart the magnetosphere, none of them are easy.

The first project, which has been ongoing for most of the past 2500 years has been to increase the atmospheric pressure. The air pressure when the Tauist settlers first arrive was about 30% standard terrestrial pressure. The air pressure at base altitude is about double that now, but averaging only about 50% standard terrestrial pressure in the inhabited areas of the south. Between the albedo of the planet and the atmosphere, Araxe still absorbs more than 70% of the solar radiation including the solar wind.

During my tenure as Managing Trustee of the Araxes Terraforming for the past 500 years, we’ve put charged particles to increase the ozone layers. It is surprisingly easy to make ozone, Ultraviolet lamp and oxygen. For the past 500 years we have launched millions of tiny solar cell powered uv-lamps which produce ozone in the upper atmosphere. They are essentially balloons which float up to between 15 and 35 kilometers above the planet’s surface. They have a mean lifetime of 20 years. They are not a major navigational hazard, averaging about 25 kilometres apart and are only slightly more durable than a child’s mylar balloon.

Sadly, this was not enough.

The magnetic flux of the Magnetosphere needed to protect the planet is quite small, about 50 Gauss (fridge magnet), but the surface area it has to protect is immense.

The most powerful permanent magnet is Neodymium iron boron magnets, which are 250 times more powerful, 12,500 gauss. They lose about 1% of their magnetic flux strength per hundred years.

About 1.5 million kilometers in the direction of Mu Draconis Alpha (our sun) is the L1 Lagrangian metastable point, where debris naturally accumulates. It stays between Araxes and Mu Draconis Alpha at all times.

We placed millions of Neodymium iron boron magnets to blunt the solar wind as it comes from Mu Draco.

We also placed several hundred thousand superconducting electromagnets, powered by solar cells at the L1, they area about 360 times the strength of the Neodymium iron boron magnets. The downside is they require maintenance and we have an ongoing maintenance fleet just for them, a tedious but necessary job.

Sadly, this was not enough.

About 200 years ago, we began the bore-hole initiative. By encasing a nuclear explosive device in about 100 tons of solid iron, when it detonates, it melts the iron and melts a deep hole in the planet’s crust. Several iterations and we can reach near enough to the planet’s mantle that we can deliver more nuclear charges to try to restart the rotation of the mantle thus increasing Araxes’ natural albeit fractured magnetosphere. We have 24 such bore holes, and detonate one nuclear device per month.

Sadly, this was not enough.

For the past 2500 years, we have been increasing our planetary water supply by transporting ice based asteroids and meteoroid material to an orbital capture around Araxes. It is very slow as to be captured at a safe altitude by Araxes’ gravitation pull requires a maximum velocity of 4750 meters per second. This is about 1 year per Astronomical Unit. It does not require astronomical amounts of energy, but really precise match. There is a continuous stream of iced volatile rocks between the asteroid field and the Kuiper Belt and Araxes, about one meteoroid or asteroid every 400,000 kilometers. One arrives every day. Dedicated orbital crews carve them up into smaller 100 ton chunks to be brought to the orbital stratosphere stations to be ferried down by the Laurathian fleet of hybrid aerostat ships.

About 80 years ago, while I was still in cryo-stasis I might add, the terraform committee decided to halt further greening of Araxes in the interest in protecting the spice production. I probably could have been convinced to give up my life’s work, but I am suspicious that they did this while I was incapacitated.

The problem created turns out to be an opportunity in another arena. We have a substantial fleet of rock moving ships in the asteroid belt and Kuiper belt, plus the outer scattering disk and the inner oort cloud.

My proposal is to repurpose them from iced volatiles to hard iron-nickel asteroid and meteoroids to be collected in high orbit of about 1500 kilometers altitude, which can be converted to habitation and manufacturing spaces. They also form collectively the same gravitational effect as if Araxes has a substantially sized moon. This net gravitation effect should be sufficient to induce tidal effects on the mantle which will create the dynamo effect sufficient to create the Magnetosphere Araxes needs.

The average asteroid will be about 200 meter diameter, which provides both a lot of structural material and a lot of usable internal space for habitation and manufacturing and logistical needs. Each 200 meter diameter asteroid is sufficient for about half a million square meters of usable space, nearly the size of the average township. In many ways not much different than living in an underground seeq on Araxes.

1500 kilometers is a key altitude, it is the altitude where solar sails and solar moths can safely unfurl and use solar radiation for thrust. One orbit every 2 hours takes some getting uses to, but the views are fantastic.

The net economic activity of the habitation and manufacturing ring will more than pay for the costs, which is no more than we have already been bearing as an expense for the past 2500 years, and we already have all of the infrastructure and manpower in place.

At our current rate of production, it will take about 2000 years to get to full strength. It will take exactly the same amount of time if we do nothing, except we would have nothing to show for it except regrets.

It will finally be enough.

Keep this date open for 2000 years from now, we’re going to throw a party. Then we can start talk about restoring the oceans and constructing a Dyson swarm.