Is it possible to have the internet on Mars?

We take a look at whether this will be possible when man finally steps foot on the Red Planet

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You could be waiting for half an hour for a Google search result on Mars. Image Credit: NASA

You could be waiting for half an hour for a Google search result on Mars. Image Credit: NASA

Asked by Lucy Goldsmith

With enough servers and computers on Mars, you could certainly have an intranet, an in-situ internal network. However having access to the internet in the same way that Earth bound humans have is another matter.

Mars inhabitants would be able to communicate with Earth regularly. However, it would take far too much data to constantly update an ‘on Mars’ version of the internet. As a result, any internet search requests would have to be transmitted to Earth and the data then transmitted back. So you could use a search engine, but due to the distances involved you would be waiting up to 30 minutes for your results!

Answered by Sophie Allan from the National Space Centre

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