1,4,4- 1Utrecht University, Faculty of Geosciences, Physical Geography, Utrecht, Netherlands (l.roelofs@uu.nl)
- 2The Planetary Society, Pasadena, CA, USA
- 3Ethiek Instituut, Department of Philosophy and Religious Studies, Faculty of Humanities, Utrecht University, The Netherlands
- 4Department of Astronomy and Planetary Science, Northern Arizona University, Flagstaff, AZ, USA
- 5Laboratoire de Météorologie Dynamique (LMD), IPSL, Sorbonne Université, Ecole Normale Supérieure, Ecole Polytechnique, Paris, France
The recent push to develop Mars terraforming technologies, increasingly driven by unaccountable private wealth, risks the irreversible destruction of planetary records we have barely begun to read. In this sense, terraforming Mars would be akin to the destruction of the Library of Alexandria. Echoing Carl Sagan’s words about the library, in this piece we argue that we should not let such an extensive loss of information happen again. As terraforming Mars would melt and destroy the icy record on Mars, we suggest closing an important gap in the COSPAR planetary protection framework, by expanding regulations on preventing biological contamination to preventing large-scale atmospheric modification and destruction of cryospheric and geologic records.
How to cite: Roelofs, L., Koeppel, A., Vrech, S., Rutledge, A., Turbet, M., and Edwards, C.: The Martian Library of Alexandria- Why Terraforming Risks Destroying a Great Unread Archive, Europlanet Science Congress 2026, The Hague, The Netherlands, 7–11 Sep 2026, EPSC2026-54, https://doi.org/10.5194/epsc2026-54, 2026.
