Four years ago, Elon Musk, founder and CEO of SpaceX, shared a strategy that he believes would make Mars habitable for humans. He speculated that if we ignited nuclear bombs over the poles of the planet, the explosions would be enough to melt most of its ice caps and cause a greenhouse effect that will warm Mars enough to sustain life. Just recently, on August 15, he tweeted “Nuke Mars!”

Musk soon after shared clarification on his idea due to much misconception that he wanted to nuke the surface of Mars. His actual plan was to nuke the sky over the planet’s poles every few seconds to induce the creation of two small “suns” over the regions. His argument for the idea is that our own sun is a “large fusion explosion,” so in his defense, the plan could potentially work. He believes the two suns would warm the planet and transform frozen carbon dioxide into gas. Scientists are, however, skeptical about his idea, and in a 2018 study done by Bruce M. Jakosky and Christopher S. Edwards, they concluded that “there is not enough CO₂ left on Mars…to produce any significant increase in temperature or pressure.”

The method could backfire, according to some scientists. Michael Mann, a climate scientist of Penn State University, stated that nuking Mars could cause “a phenomenon known as ‘nuclear winter’ (akin to the asteroid impact that killed off the dinosaurs), wherin you generate so much dust and particles that they literally block out a significant portion of the incoming sunlight, cooling down the planet.” There are also some ethical concerns that have been sparked, raising the question if we have the right to alter an entire world, especially if it may already harbor its own life. Water has been discovered on the red planet, speculating that life may in fact exist. Further research should be done before we even consider this plan to colonize Mars. For those who support the idea, Elon Musk has T-shirts promoting it that you can purchase from the SpaceX online store.