Elon Musk has revised his plan to "nuke Mars", claiming that it "might make sense" to use giant mirrors to warm the Red Planet instead.
The billionaire entrepreneur and founder of SpaceX said that surrounding Mars with "thousands of solar reflector satellites" could potentially raise the temperature enough to make it habitable.
Musk's latest suggestion comes after he sent the internet into a frenzy last week , with the simple tweet: "Nuke Mars".
He later posted a picture of t-shirts with the slogan "Nuke Mars" emblazoned across the front, claiming that they would be coming "soon".
In a tweet on Wednesday, Musk elaborated on this plan, claiming that it would involve "a continuous stream of very low fallout nuclear fusion explosions above the atmosphere to create artificial suns".
"Much like our sun, this would not cause Mars to become radioactive," he said.
However he added that it was still "tbd" (to be decided) whether the giant mirrors or the artificial suns are the best approach.
This isn't the first time Musk has proposed artificially warming Mars to make it habitable by humans.
Back in 2015, the SpaceX CEO discussed the idea on US television , describing it as "a fixer-upper of a planet".
One of his theories is that detonating nuclear bombs over Mars's poles would vaporise a large portion of the planet's ice caps.
This would liberate enough water vapour and carbon dioxide - both potent greenhouse gases - to warm up the planet substantially, potentially making it habitable.
However, the theory has been largely discredited by scientists.
A 2018 study published in the journal Nature Astronomy indicated that, even if all the carbon dioxide on the planet was liberated, it would equate to only 7% of the CO2 on Earth.
Meanwhile, NASA has proposed creating an artificial magnetosphere around Mars to rebuild the atmosphere and allow water to pool on the surface.
And a joint US and British team of researchers recently proposed creating "small islands" paved with silica aerogel - a fluffy white powder that is mostly air - to insulate the frozen world.
