A Martian funeral, or What cemeteries on the Red Planet will look like
People have seriously decided to colonize Mars in the very near future. Therefore, hundreds of new technologies are being developed every year that will help solve various problems that are exotic for Earth, but relevant for the Red Planet. One of the sad tasks is the funeral of people who, alas, will inevitably die and perish far from their home planet. Of course, no one will send the dead to Earth, and therefore scientists have studied the effect of the Martian environment on the bodies and found the best way to bury the dead on Mars.
Man appeared on Earth and is perfectly adapted to the environment of our planet both during life and after death. Our environment perfectly copes with the processing of biomass, it doesn't matter if it's a human body, fruit or an old tree — it's only a matter of time.
Nicholas Passalaqua , a forensic anthropologist at Western Carolina University , puts it this way:
Many types of microorganisms, insects, birds and animals are involved in the decomposition of the corpse. This process cannot be called step-by-step and orderly — much in its course depends on the environment, the state of the body, its mass and, most importantly, on the air temperature. Nicholas Passalaqua describes the role of temperature in the decomposition process as follows:
Temperature is also important for another reason. Melissa Connor, professor of forensic anthropology at the University of Colorado, clarifies that the process of sublimation or dehydration begins at low temperatures when water ice turns into gas, bypassing the liquid form. On Earth, if water sublimates and autolysis stops due to low temperatures, decomposition of bodies is impossible and the process of mummification takes place.
Mars is a planet with very different conditions from Earth. It's dry and cold there, and the air is 95% carbon dioxide and only 0.16% oxygen. The average temperature near the surface of the Red Planet is -63 degrees Celsius, but it can be much warmer or colder. Measurements carried out in 2020 by the InSight device showed a daytime maximum of -4 degrees, and a nighttime minimum of 96 degrees Celsius.
Neither living organisms nor liquid water have been found on Mars, so a dead body, even if it is buried in Martian soil, will not be able to decompose. It will dry out strongly and mummify, which will give it the opportunity to remain unchanged for centuries.
Melissa Connor believes that the first stages of decomposition will still come. Rotting and autolysis will continue for a very short time - until the body freezes, after which these processes will stop. But even this short-term rotting will be very sluggish, since most of the microorganisms involved in this process are aerobic. This means that they need air for life, and when the oxygen concentration drops below 40 percent, their growth stops.
In Martian conditions, only anaerobic bacteria that do not need air will be able to reproduce, but their capabilities are limited and they will not make special weather in decomposition. Therefore, a dead body, having frozen and lost moisture, will turn into an almost perfect mummy, capable of being preserved much longer than Egyptian mummies.
Connor says that on Mars, a corpse will never turn into a skeleton, as it happens on Earth. That is why the idea of burying the dead in the ground, as is often done on our planet, is not a good one. Since the bodies will not decompose, it will not be possible to reuse cemeteries, even after centuries, and if the population of the Martian colonies continues to grow, in a couple of centuries necropolises will occupy huge areas.
In this case, we can assume that cremation will be the best way to bury the dead on Mars, but even here there is a problem. For effective burning of the human body, a temperature of at least 538 degrees Celsius is needed. There are no problems with this on Earth, but for a desert Mars, which is still being settled by colonists, such energy costs for the disposal of bodies will become an unheard-of luxury.
So what to do with the dead, really send them to eternal rest in space? Scientists from the USA have already answered this question. The human body is a valuable raw material for obtaining biomass on a planet where there are no plants or animals. There will be no need for the Martian settlers to destroy the corpse — they will be able to use its potential for the benefit of their colony.
The bodies can be processed by special equipment into fertilizer and used to increase soil fertility in greenhouses. This method may seem cynical and even blasphemous to us, but for people forced to fight for survival on the Red Planet, it will be a completely normal solution.
Scientists do not exclude that in the future, terrestrial aerobic microorganisms responsible for the decomposition of corpses will be able to adapt to Martian conditions and the problem will be solved in the same way as on Earth. But for this to happen, not tens, but hundreds of years must pass, or people must create special conditions for bacteria to work on organic matter. So, most likely, cemeteries on Mars will be similar to terrestrial greenhouses.