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MARS IS AN unpleasant place.
It’s cold, full of deserts, and has very little oxygen or gravity.
The average annual temperature on Mars around -53°C. At its hottest, Mars could hit 26°C near the equator in the middle of the day. In the Martian winter, however, temperatures could fall to -128°C.
That’s why the first requirement for visiting the red planet would be a spacesuit.
But we were curious: How long could someone survive a summer day on Mars without all this fancy equipment, say, wearing only jeans and T-shirt and while holding his or her breath — which the average human can do for a little more than a minute.
The answers is, unsurprisingly, not very long.
“The most serious immediate impact would be from the low atmospheric pressure that is nearly a vacuum compared to Earth,” Chris Webster from NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, which manages the Curiosity rover roaming Mars, said in an email.
Within minutes the skin and organs would rupture, outgas, and produce a quick, painful death.
If not killed by the low-pressure atmosphere — there are many other environmental factors that make Mars inhospitable to humans without protection.
“Any humans on Mars would have to contend with the lack of oxygen — only about 0.1 per cent compared to Earth’s 20 per cent — the very cold surface temperatures, the ubiquitous and irritating dust, the intense UV radiation, surface chemicals and oxidants,” Webster said.
And all this before they started looking for food and water!
This post is part of a continuing series that answers all of your “why” questions related to science. Have your own question? Email dspector@businessinsider.com with the subject line “Q&A”; tweet your question to @BI_Science; or post to our Facebook page.
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Wow. To be the 7th least failed state in the world is mindblowing… simply for the thought that most are in a worse position than us!
We are better than canada! And the usa not bad
Am I reading that right? Only three other EU members are less failed states than Ireland is?
God that must really irritate the crew who consider us a complete banana republic.
i thought everything in the nordic countries was top banna. seeings they are always held up as the ones to be like
That article doesn’t make a whole pile of sense..
This ranking is not about quality of life, etc. like some comments suggest you read that. It’s about peace and military risks in particular countries.
I suppose it’s “our” fault that seven of the ten worst countries are in Africa.
Haiti was a cesspit ever before the tragedy there, sadly, and now they’ve turned to raping one another.
Iraq and Afghanistan are a whole other story!
Hail the baldy Nazis dem dam nigras don’t have a clue
You’re some gowl.
I hope we can move up near Switzerland at some stage. Tighter borders, lower-taxes, and they have their own currency!!!
Lower taxes? Really? Any mid Europe states i’ve lived in were thieves when it came to tax! (admittedly i’ve not lived in Switzerland, but it is one of my favourite places!)
really this is propaganda somalia is not leading top list there is bit exageration we aware of that somalia is devastated country and failure state indicating humanitarian crises and human rights abuses ,killing ,abducting, hijacking raping but there is still hope to survive this condition we are not hopeless our people still struggling to control there live style and to restore the country peace and stability so that we are not top list becouse this means no hope
Sorry, but what is actually your point, I struggle to understand? Thanks.
I think the point was that “there is hope”.
And yes, if other countries stopped interfering, there probably would be. For example:
“The United States has quietly poured weapons and military advisers into Ethiopia, whose recent invasion of Somalia opened a new front in the Bush administration’s war on terrorism …” etc etc. 1/8/2007
have your say