NO LIFE ON MARS.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXXIV, Issue 1019, 16 March 1912, Page 4

NO LIFE ON MARS.

If Mr E. Walter Maunder is right —and he speaks with more than common authority —Mars is a place where no living thing, such as we know it on the earth, cau possibly exist. In a lecture which he gave on January 22nd (says a Eoudou journal) to the members ot the Victoria Institute, he told his reasons for believing that the earth is the only planet where man, or any other part of animal or plant creation, can live. He took the planets one by one, and condemned each in turn, He even considered some of the moons; but each one had some disability which could only spell death. He hesitated for a while in discussing Venus. There was just a possibility that the sheath of clouds that covered her from the fierce heat of the sun might have beneath it some kind of lite, but Italian observers believed that Venus always turned one face to the sun just as the moon always turns the same face to the earth, Mr Maunder has his doubts about this. He believes that he has noticed something like a 24 hours’ rotation, but thinks that atmospheric conditions may make the Italian observations more accurate than his. If the Italians are right, one-halt of Venus is too hot lor any life, and the half that turns its face eternally from the sun is chilled to the realms of death. Mercury is in much the same predicament. It has not even the thinnest zone on which living things cau be. As to Mars, we can watch it very closelv, and we cau see or imagine all sorts ot strange things, but its deadly cold makes life impossible. The mean temperature of the earth as a whole is 60 deg. Fahr., and even by the simplest method ot computation, leaving many considerations out of account, the temperature of Mars is rodeg. (22deg. of frost). When such conditions as the water and air coverings of the earth are considered, the difference between the temperature of the earth and Mars must be at least xoodeg. Mr Maunder believes that in some | parts of Mars the temperature at times creeps down close to the absolute zero, Mr Maunder has no belief in the gigantic canals seen by Professor Howell. He believes them to be an outcome of the desire to see them ; not exactly optical illusions,,

but something very much of the sort. He said ; “A telegraph wire against the background of a dull sky can be perceived with certainty at an amazing distance. If a bead is put on the telegraph wire the bead must be more than 30 times the breadth of the wire to be perceived, and some 60 or 70 times the breadth of the wire before it can be fully defined so that the observer can distinguish between a bead that is square, round or any other shape. Here, and not in any gigantic engineering works, is the explanation ot the artificiality of the markings on Mars, as Mr Lowell sees them ; their artificiality disappears under better seeing with more powerful telescopes.” Mr Maunder concluded: “So in our own system we have found that there is one planet, our eatth, that is inhabited and one other that may perchance be habitable ; the others all may with certainty be ruled out of court. Under the Ptolemaic theory the earth was regarded as the centre of the universe. This work of Copernicus deprived it of this pride of place, but exalted it to the rank of a heavenly body. There it seemed to be one ot the smallest, most iusigulicant of its compeers. But I think if we have reasoned aright this afternoon we see that it has a claim to a higher distinction than size or brightness can possibly give it; it is almost certain that it is unique amongst the heavenly bodies that are visible to us, and amongst those that are unseen and unknown there can only be a small proportion, at best, so well favoured. It is the home of life, carefully fitted and prepared for that purpose by its position and its size.”