What If You Were Born on Mars?

martians might really exist in the future but instead of the aliens of sci-fi movies martians would be humans born and raised on mars and in this episode you're one of them why would your skin be orange would you be a different species and would you ever be able to visit earth this is what if and here's what would happen if you were born on mars some of our previous episodes have already looked at what it would take to live on mars but that's only half the story to create a stable settlement on the red planet people would have to start having babies how many people would we need to create a healthy non-inbred population well some say we'd only need 98 people but others say we'd need a minimum of 10 000 but regardless of the size of the breeding population it would only take a few generations before we started seeing a huge difference between earthlings and martians mars is the most earth-like planet in the solar system but it's not exactly like the earth its gravity atmosphere and magnetic field would create serious challenges for human life and challenges often go hand in hand with evolution children on earth are born with up to 120 genetic mutations move those babies to mars and they would start having mutations suitable for martian living and those mutations would likely pass on to their children by the time we settle on mars we'll probably have the ability to modify our own genes putting martian evolution on the fast track so if you were born in the third or fourth generation of martians you would be a lot different than you are today but what are the main reasons why your body would change well first there's gravity mars only has one third of earth's gravity so your bones wouldn't experience the same force your bones would lose their density and become more brittle breaking them would become a common issue then there's the atmosphere on earth you're used to a dense atmosphere that mostly contains nitrogen and oxygen but on mars you'd be experiencing a thin atmosphere that's mostly carbon dioxide with only trace amounts of oxygen you wouldn't be able to evolve a whole new respiratory system but you could develop other ways of dealing with the lack of oxygen like you could have denser capillaries that are more efficient at moving blood and transporting oxygen to your muscles but even with these advances you'd still have to live underground or in a thickly insulated house to survive the harsh atmosphere and since life on mars would be confined to small spaces martians wouldn't need to be able to see far into the distance yeah you would be born nearsighted and finally there's the radiation earth has a strong magnetic field that protects us from lethal solar radiation but mars has a weak magnetic field that's scattered along the planet on earth our bodies produce melanin it protects us from the radiation that does make it through earth's magnetic field but the radiation on mars would be much stronger and melanin just wouldn't cut it instead your skin would produce carotenoids this pigment would help protect you against skin cancer by slowing or stopping the cell cycle carotenoids can even make melanoma cells self-destruct they're also what gives carrots their vivid orange coloring yeah in other words your skin would be orange so with all these changes to your body would you be able to visit earth well mars wouldn't have the same type of bacteria and viruses that the earth does so your immune system would be weaker than that of an earthlings which means earth could be a dangerous place for you and even if your immune system were strong the gravity of earth would be too much for your brittle bones if you were born on mars you'd probably have to stay there humans have looked the same for a very long time but within a few generations of living on mars we could have orange near-sighted humans who could survive on less oxygen and once we successfully settle on mars we probably wouldn't stop there in the future humans could have settlements on all sorts of planets even outside the solar system you know what if all aliens whom we're so excited and terrified to meet are just future versions of humans well that's a story for another what if [Music]

Channel: What If

Views: 1,682,629

Keywords: what if, what happens if, scifi, science documentary, what if scenario, what if your body, hypothetical, martian, future, aliens, sci fi movies, sci fi, human, born and raised, mars, settlement, species, population, colonizing, terraforming, breeding, earthling, atmosphere, space, nasa, spacex, magnetic field, evolution, bones, oxygen, expanse, elon musk, starship spacex, mars base alpha, Starbase, Superheavy, Starship, Space Between, Boca Chica

Id: j1zXN9JMRt4

Length: 5min 52sec (352 seconds)

Published: Sun Aug 22 2021