Portal:Mars/Selected article/August 2008
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The terraforming (literally, "Earth-shaping") of a planet, moon, or other body is the hypothetical process of deliberately modifying its atmosphere, temperature, surface topography or ecology to be similar to those of Earth in order to make it habitable by humans. The term is sometimes used broadly as a synonym for planetary engineering in general. The concepts of terraforming are rooted both in science fiction and actual science. The term was probably coined by Jack Williamson in a science-fiction story published in 1942 in Astounding Science Fiction, but the actual concept pre-dates this work. Olaf Stapledon's Last and First Men (1930) provides an example in fiction in which the planet Venus is modified after a long and destructive war with the original inhabitants of the planet.
