Mars Pioneers and the Circadian Clock

Any human being who heads over to colonize the Red Planet is bound to be facing some pretty daunting odds. Now scientists have come up with one more thing that early pioneers to Mars will have to overcome. What’s different about this point is that it has nothing to do with the hostile environment outside, but everything to do with the body’s own bio rhythm.

A team of scientists from Holland, Germany and the UK’s University of Manchester conducted a study on animals whose Circadian Clock had moved up from 24 hours to 20 hours. The 24 hour Circadian Clock which has been found commonly in most animals and human beings stems from the speed of the earth’s rotation.

The animals were moved outdoors into the 24 hour rhythm and observed. Within a few generations it was observed that the mice with the faster Circadian clocks of 20 hours had almost completely been wiped out of the population. While this reinforced other studies conducted on the disruption of the clock associated with abnormal work and lighting conditions, it also brings out a problem for space travellers in the future.

Now considering the fact that a day on Mars is actually 37 minutes longer than a day on Earth, one can imagine the troubles that human beings will eventually face there. Naturally the scope of this single science experiment is not enough to comment on a problem of such magnitude.