Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

LightNews

Edwin Kite

@edwinkite.bsky.social

1.1K followers 630 following 24 posts

Resident at Astera Institute. Planetary science professor, U. Chicago. Mars terraforming, Early Mars, rocky exoplanets. https://sseh.uchicago.edu/

sseh.uchicago.edu

Posts Media Videos Starter Packs

Edwin Kite @edwinkite.bsky.social · 2d

An Introduction to Mars Terraforming, 2025 Workshop Summary
arxiv.org/abs/2510.07344

An Introduction to Mars Terraforming, 2025 Workshop Summary

Terraforming Mars is an age old science fiction concept now worth revisiting through the lens of modern science and technology. This document serves as a summary of contemporary ideas about Mars terra...

Reposted by Edwin Kite

Daniel Pomarède @pomarede.bsky.social · 22d

Check out this U. of Chicago podcast with Edwin Kite offering insights on climate and life on Mars, the Mars Sample Return mission, a transformative scaled up version of Ingenuity that can fly hundreds of kilometers, and more! @edwinkite.bsky.social

news.uchicago.edu/big-brains-p... 🧪🔭 #Mars

Life on Mars: Is it possible for humans? with Edwin Kite

Scientist examines how we could terraform Mars make the Red Planet habitable

news.uchicago.edu

Edwin Kite @edwinkite.bsky.social · Sep 10

That's not what the papers say. Glidden et al. write, "Both a bare rock and an N2-rich atmosphere provide adequate fits to the data." That's not "hints of an atmosphere," any more than flipping a coin and covering it with my hand is "hints of heads."

Edwin Kite @edwinkite.bsky.social · Aug 12

New paper alert!

Brandon Park Coy et al., "The Role of Tectonic Luck in Long-Term Habitability of Abiotic Earth-like Planets" (accepted by PSJ):

arxiv.org/abs/2507.23124

The Role of Tectonic Luck in Long-Term Habitability of Abiotic Earth-like Planets

Carbonate-silicate weathering feedback is thought to stabilize Earth's climate on geologic timescales. If climate warms, faster mineral dissolution and increased rainfall speed up weathering, increasi...

Edwin Kite @edwinkite.bsky.social · Aug 1

open.substack.com/pub/marsterr...

Fostering a world-scale biosphere on Mars: a research agenda

Mars has been a frozen desert for three billion years. Can we change that?

open.substack.com

Edwin Kite @edwinkite.bsky.social · Jul 3

New paper: "Carbonate formation and fluctuating habitability on Mars", Nature, open access: rdcu.be/euuTb . Inspired by data from Mars Science Laboratory Curiosity rover

Carbonate formation and fluctuating habitability on Mars

Nature - A modelling study suggests that Mars had a desert-like climate with intermittent liquid-water oases regulated by a negative feedback among solar luminosity, liquid water and carbonate...

Reposted by Edwin Kite

Edwin Kite @edwinkite.bsky.social · Jul 1

Terraforming session @agu.org 2025 Fall Meeting: P008 - Creating sustainable habitats and ecosystems beyond Earth

To submit an abstract, please visit
agu.confex.com/agu/agu25/pr...

Edwin Kite @edwinkite.bsky.social · Jul 1

biogeochemistry, in-situ resource utilization, oxygen production, ecology, and space physics and space environment monitoring, as well as the exploration and distribution of terraforming-relevant resources. Submissions on technologies/techniques that support terraforming goals are also encouraged.

Edwin Kite @edwinkite.bsky.social · Jul 1

We encourage contributions on all aspects of both local and global terraforming, including planetary atmospheres, climate modeling/climate feedbacks, monitoring of climate change beyond Earth, spacecraft data analysis, hydrology, soil/regolith composition and suitability (or otherwise) for life,

Edwin Kite @edwinkite.bsky.social · Jul 1

If we decide in the future to create sustainable habitats and ecosystems beyond Earth, then science will have a critical role to play. As the cost of access to space continues to fall, a fresh look at the research agenda for this topic is timely.

Edwin Kite @edwinkite.bsky.social · Jul 1

Conveners: Edwin Kite ( @asterainstitute.bsky.social + @uchicagopsd.bsky.social
), Nina Lanza (LANL), @rdword.bsky.social‬ (@harvard.edu), and Chuanfei Dong (BU)

Edwin Kite @edwinkite.bsky.social · Jul 1

Terraforming session @agu.org 2025 Fall Meeting: P008 - Creating sustainable habitats and ecosystems beyond Earth

To submit an abstract, please visit
agu.confex.com/agu/agu25/pr...

Edwin Kite @edwinkite.bsky.social · May 15

www.lanl.gov/media/news/0...

Is terraforming Mars possible? | Los Alamos National Laboratory

The possibility of terraforming Mars to make it habitable by humans has captured recent headlines and the imagination — but is there science to support it?

Reposted by Edwin Kite

Erika DeBenedictis @erika-alden.bsky.social · May 13

Today I and 11 other scientists describe in Nature Astronomy how recent breakthroughs in launch capabilities, climate, and synthetic biology demand a new assessment of the feasibility of terraforming Mars.

www.erikadebenedictis.com/s/The-case-f...

Reposted by Edwin Kite

Erika DeBenedictis @erika-alden.bsky.social · May 13

Heads up: terraforming Mars isn’t just sci-fi, it’s a real possibility that’s possible with today’s technology.

Mars could be green in MY lifetime. 🚀 🌼

What’s stopping us? We need a lot more real research into how to do it right. Don’t nuke Mars!

👇

Reposted by Edwin Kite

Space Sciences Laboratory @ucbssl.bsky.social · May 12

Big thanks to @edwinkite.bsky.social whose talk on prospects for terraforming Mars filled our conference room and elicited lively discussion.

Edwin Kite @edwinkite.bsky.social · May 3

Another video vision of terraformed Mars through the lens of Casey Handmer's Google Mars overlay: www.youtube.com/watch?v=Du7j...

A vision of terraformed Mars through the lens of Casey Handmer's Google Mars overlay

YouTube video by edwinkite1

www.youtube.com

Edwin Kite @edwinkite.bsky.social · May 3

A video vision of terraformed Mars through the lens of Casey Handmer's Google Mars overlay: www.youtube.com/watch?v=h1lf...

A vision of terraformed Mars through the lens of Casey Handmer's Google Mars overlay

YouTube video by edwinkite1

www.youtube.com

Reposted by Edwin Kite

Columbia Climate School @climate.columbia.edu · May 1

🧵1/3 New research by @climate.columbia.edu postdoc Kaitlyn Loftus, Yangcheng Luo, colleagues suggests extreme weather on exoplanet 55 Cancri e may be caused by lava cycle...like Earth’s water cycle, but with molten rock! Lava clouds form & decay in cycle that causes temps to swing by 2500°F in week.

Illustration of two stages of exoplanet 55 Cancri e's proposed lava cycle. The planet may oscillate between cloud-free, hotter conditions (left) and cloudy, cooler conditions (right).

Edwin Kite @edwinkite.bsky.social · Apr 27

It was fun to discuss Mars terraforming with @davidkipping.bsky.social ! Link: m.youtube.com/watch?v=-Dae...

#21 Edwin Kite - Early Mars, Terraforming/Settling Mars

YouTube video by Cool Worlds Podcast

Edwin Kite @edwinkite.bsky.social · Apr 3

Within our model, Mars radiative-dynamical feedbacks enable engineered-aerosol warming. Challenges remain, including functionalization, agglomeration, dry-deposition experiments, and modeling water cycle
feedbacks. Happy to now be working @asterainstitute.bsky.social on these problem!

Edwin Kite @edwinkite.bsky.social · Apr 3

The Hadley cell strengthens under warming, aiding mixing.

Edwin Kite @edwinkite.bsky.social · Apr 3

Both compositions can give fast global warming of ~30 K. We infer that 2 liters/second release rate of graphene made from Mars' atmosphere via CO2-electrolysis could double Mars' greenhouse effect (+5 K).

Edwin Kite @edwinkite.bsky.social · Apr 3

To warm Mars using engineered aerosol, particles released locally must disperse globally. Using a plume-tracking climate model without a water cycle, we investigate radiative-dynamical feedback from surface release of two particle compositions: graphene and Al.

Edwin Kite @edwinkite.bsky.social · Apr 3

Warming Mars' surface could be a step toward making it suitable for life, but would represent a major science and engineering challenge.