RIDDLE OF MARS

Wairarapa Times-Age, 3 August 1939, Page 5

RIDDLE OF MARS

MYSTERY “CANALS.” DO LIVING CREATURES EXIST THERE? A cable message we’ published the other day stated: Astronomers hope to clear up outstanding controversies regarding Mars when the planet comes with 36.000,000 miles of the earth — nearer than at any time in the past 15 years. If the weather is favourable hundreds of highly-sensitive photographic plates will be exposed. Are then any living creatures on Mars? (asks Mr E. R. Yarham, F.R.G.S., in an article contributed to the Dunedin “Evening Star"). Nobody knows yet, but one of the greatest riddles of the red planet, its “canals,” is likely to be solved within a year or two. All over the world astronomers are awaiting the opportunity the coming proximity of the planet will give them to try to solve the mystery of its gigantic canal system, which some are convinced must have been the work of highly-intelligent beings, and others only optical illusions. This will be in 1939, and Americans are convinced that in the summer of that year the great 200-inch telescope now nearing’completion for erection in California will settle once and for all the question of the Martians and their canals. On that occasion Mars will be only about 30,000.000 miles distant. PROFESSOR LOWELL’S THEORY.

Very few observers today, as a matter of fact, question the existence of these “canals” on Mars, although what they actually are is a very different thing. Professor Percival Lowell. who died about 20 years back, and who created a great controversy when he declared there was life on Mars, thought they might be drifts of vegetation along artificially-made waterways.

If they are waterways they are huge compared with any man-made canals on earth. For some of them are 4,000 miles long and 10 miles wide. The huge proportions of these canals, it is said, are made possible by the fact that the force of gravity on Mars being much less than that on earth, a man would be able to move far larger quantities of material. Even allowing for this, however, the Martians must be supermen indeed to create such huge works. Yet there are many astronomers who believe that the only way to account for the goemetrical markings on Mars is by allowing them to be artificial canals. Water is scarce on Mars, and tfiose who accept the canal theory say these waterways have been made to allow the water from the melting ice and snow round the planet's poles to be conveyed for irrigation purposes to other parts of the planet. As evidence of this they accept dark areas, which in summer time appear and spread near the canals, to be growing vegetation. Furthermore, the fact that these cultivated regions,. periodically shift from one region to another is said to be proof that the Martians have a system of rotation of crops, diverting the water from the poles from one part to another by means of their huge canals.

EVIDENCE THAT CONFLICTS. On the other hand, Dr Waterfield, director of the Mars section of the British Astronomical Association, tells us that sometimes there occur on Mars what might be called ‘'catastrophic changes” in the dark markings. It happened with a vengeance between 1926 and 1931, when a dark marking called the ‘‘eye of Mars” was bodily shifted and quite changed its shape. No explanation of 'that can yet be given. It does not accord very well with the farming theory—unless the Martians suddenly evolved a new system of agriculture! One of the most prominent opponents of the canal theory has been M. Antoniardi. of Meudon Observatory, France, who has spent over a quarter of a century studying and photographing Mars. Four years back he published the results of his observations, together with an analysis of the work of other astronomers for the last 300 years. There ho stated his conviction that the canals are optical illusions and really isolated features which actually appear to be continuous straight lines. As for the snowcaps at the poles, which, melting in summer, supply the temperate regions with water, they are more likely to be carbon dioxide than frozen water, or else atmospheric phenomena high above the planet's surface. But. as has been said, most astronomers today are certain that “canals” of some kind exist on Mars. LIFE CERTAINLY POSSIBLE. Life of a kind is certainly possible on Mars, according to all data obtained so far. although it may be very different from life hero. The temperature on Mars is about 48deg, and there are both oxygen and water vapour there, clouds sometimes cover part of the. planet. One seen a year or two hock was a storm cloud covering snr;O')!) cuuare m'l--s and tton’in? in c bape from one night to another. Two. rears ago the Americans reported see-ic'-ffo ni"na? ov'"’ M n rs. and a day two )c‘nr were. cl-]-. f" watch. the clouds di=p°r oi nff. Knowing these facts, we come to the fas C ; na t; n g question: Does life exist on Mars? Its atmosphere extends to a hnicht of about 15 miles and is much [oss dense than cum and th" t<>mp o '’atu’’e is lower on the average. Bu' animal life ovists on earth m ports of it where conditions am much less favourable than those .on Mars. Dr Slipher, Professor Lowell's successor, believes life may exist on Mars. There is impressive evidence in favour of vegetation, and our experience on earth, is that where vegetation lives, there animal life of some kind is found too. And of all the planets we study Mars is the most suited for life. RAREFIED ATMOSPHERE. If we visited Mars we would have to j take some kind of artificial breathing apparatus, the atmosphere being too rarefied to support human beings born on this planet. We would probably quickly succumb, too. of infections from germs against which our bodies have developed no defences. On

the other hand, the sunshine, more abundant than here, would be enjoyable, although the nights would be extremely cold. Work would be far easier, for a hundredweight on Mars would weigh no more than 401 b here.