It is no more just an imagination to think of life on Mars. After prolonged years of research on the red planet by agencies around the world, there are now deeper studies concentrating to establish a human base there. The hunt for Martians and alien life also goes on side by side. While the life on Mars is going to be very challenging in terms of setting up sources of food and other hospitable elements, the biggest challenge might be sex. A new research published by an international team of scientists looks at the challenges of reproduction on Mars and the outcomes of it.

Life on Mars is going to be more complex. The paper mentions that if humans do settle down and do try for conceiving, it will give rise to start of a new species. There are a lot of things to it, whether conceiving is successful and bringing up an offspring on another world is even likely. There are a lot of problems that could come up when humans are trying to rear on the new planet in the universe. The most obvious hurdle to this idea is the low gravity in the atmosphere. The environment could pose a danger to the conception and pregnancy processes that seem easy on the planet Earth.

Mars will have just one-third of the Earth's gravity, which can result in several health problems to the people on Mars. There is enough proof of this from the scientists who have already spent a lot of time in space. By studying the biology of these scientists, it has been observed that their muscles deteriorate rapidly and the bone structure also weakens. Some astronauts have even faced issues in their vision. These are the cases with the healthiest bodies who travelled up in space. So it is difficult to even say if a woman will be able to carry a baby without any problems. How do Astronauts Pee and Poop in Space? NASA Astronaut Reveals The Misery of Spaceship Toilets

The paper looks at setting up small colonies as human settlers. And there would no concept of 'love' but one of 'survival.' So a man and woman will be paired up for their biology rather than any emotional attachment to it. Some individuals may never even be allowed to have children due to some traits that could be harmful to the whole colony. What seems a scary prospect is that researchers state that editing the genes of future Mars babies may help in increasing the chances of survival. The bad traits will have to be pushed out and a human life on the red planet will be a big edge but with generations, there will be a new species of human, a subspecies which will be adapted to Mars but would never have a normal life on Earth.

(The above story first appeared on LatestLY on May 31, 2018 03:59 PM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com).