SECRETS OF THE RED PLANET

Thursday January 24,2008

By Jane Warren

 

A is for ARISTOTLE: The Greek philosopher was among the first known writers to describe the movement of the distant blood-red planet as it travelled across the night sky, around 350BC. In 1609, Galileo was the first astronomer to see it via his newly invented telescope.

B is for BEAGLE 2: An unsuccessful landing of the British spacecraft formed part of the European Space Agency’s 2003 Mars Express mission. It was named after Beagle 1, the ship that carried Charles Darwin around the world on his voyage of discovery in the 19th century. Unfortunately, all contact with Beagle 2 was lost upon its separation from the main spacecraft six days before its scheduled entry into the Martian atmosphere.

C is for CANYON: The Valles Marineris is a Mars canyon 2,500 miles long and 4.3 miles deep that would stretch all the way across Europe if it was on Earth. It extends across one-fifth of the circumference of Mars and is the largest known crevice in the solar system. In comparison, the Grand Canyon in America is only 277 miles long and 1.2 miles deep. Researchers believe Valles Marineris was formed as the planet cooled and was subsequently widened by erosion.

D is for DISTANCE: Mars is 1,500 times further away from Earth than the Moon. It takes 300 days for a modern-day spacecraft to travel there, compared to three days to the Moon. Mars is half again as far from the Sun as we are – between 128 and 155 million miles compared to Earth’s average of 93 million miles. The closest its orbit comes to Earth is 35 million miles. Due to its larger orbit, Mars takes 687 Earth days to travel around the sun. Mars is 15 per cent of the volume of Earth and has a surface area a fifth of its size.

E is for EARTH-LIKE: Our neighbouring planet may be blanketed in toxic soil and zapped by radiation but it is still the most like Earth of all the planets in the solar system. It has polar ice caps that grow and recede with the change of seasons; it has an atmosphere, albeit much thinner than on Earth, though it may have been thicker millions of years ago; and like our planet it also has a rocky surface that would enable
all the necessary chemicals for life to collect in one place rather than floating through a gassy atmosphere.

F is for FOSSILS: In 2004 there was fevered speculation that a fossil had been found on Mars after a millimetre-long “curly macaroni” shape was seen in a cross section of rock extracted by the Opportunity Mars Rover. More recent suggestions are that this curlicue wasn’t rock at all but something created by the abrasion of the drill used to dissect the rock, or during the original formation of the rock. This followed speculation in 1996 that scientists had found what looked like fossilised bacteria in a meteorite that had once been part of Mars but this was never proven.

G is for GRAVITY: Mars has roughly a third of Earth’s gravity because of its much lower mass. The Moon has one sixth of the gravity of Earth.

H is for HG WELLS: The War Of The Worlds remains the best known depiction of Mars in fiction. Written in a semi-documentary style, it postulated a grim future
in which Martians seek to escape their dying planet by invading Earth. The subsequent radio version, voiced by Orson Welles in 1938, scared millions of listeners into believing that tentacled creatures had landed on Earth

in their war machines. Films featuring Mars also include Tim Burton’s spoof blockbuster Mars Attacks, starring Jack Nicholson and Tom Jones, and Total Recall, starring Arnold Schwarzenegger, based on a story about a Martian colony that fights for independence from Earth.

I is for I LOVE MARS: This is the informal slogan of the Mars Society, a non-profit group with 7,000 members worldwide that pushes relentlessly for human exploration and settlement of the red planet. It is currently running Operation President 2008 in which members lie in wait for US presidential candidates at campaign stops then leap out to pop the question: “As President, would you send a man to Mars?”

J is for JULIUS CAESAR: The Romans identified their god of war with Mars, since the fourth planet shines blood red. Mars was one of the most important of the Roman gods and an entire month of the year, March, was dedicated to his savagery. Temples were built to him and he was honoured with celebrations throughout the year. The word martial, pertaining to war, grew from his influence.

K is for KIRK’S SOAP: The exciting idea that Mars was populated by intelligent Martians took off in the late 19th century after Italian astronomer Giovanni Schiaparelli produced the first detailed map of Mars showing long straight lines, called “canali”, and to which he gave the names of famous rivers on Earth. These canals were later shown to be an optical illusion but the Victorians were already obsessed with the idea of ancient civilisations constructing irrigation works on their dying planet. Martian fever was summed up in an 1893 soap ad that declared: “Mars is Peopled and they want Kirk’s American Family Soap.”

L is for LIFE ON MARS: Although it is thought to be too cold for life to exist on the surface of Mars, it could be possible in warmer pockets below ground. Scientists believe micro-organisms could be residing in hydro-thermal vents near the planet’s surface. Others think there is a possibility that there may have been life on the planet millions of years ago which is now extinct.

M is for METEORITES: Many of these found to have landed on Earth were actually once pieces of the planet Mars. As of June 2006, 34 Martian meteorites have been found.

N is for NASA: The space agency has an officer whose role is to protect Earth from contamination. He is on stand-by to vet the first rock samples that are likely to be brought back from Mars to Earth in approximately
10 years’ time.

O is for OPPOSITION: Earth makes two trips around the Sun in about the same amount of time that Mars takes to make one trip. Sometimes Earth catches up with its neighbour and passes relatively close to it. At other times, during opposition, Mars and the Sun are on directly opposite sides of Earth when, from our perspective, Mars rises in the east just as the sun sets in the west.

P is for PROBES: Mariner 4 was the first spacecraft to visit Mars in 1965, giving scientists their first close-up glimpse. The first spacecraft orbited Mars in 1971 and the first one landed there in 1976. In 2003, Mars Surveyor landed the remote-controlled rover, named Mars Spirit, a robotic device that continues to survey the Martian surface sending back data to Nasa. The Phoenix Mars Lander is on its way to the planet, scheduled to arrive in late spring near Mars’ north pole.

Q is for QUEST: To stand on Mars was explicitly identified as a long-term goal in the Vision for Space Exploration announced in 2004 by George W Bush. Nasa
is now working on the Orion spacecraft, which is scheduled to send a human expedition to the Moon by 2020 as a stepping stone to putting a man on Mars by 2037. Meanwhile, the European Space Agency hopes to land humans on Mars between 2030 and 2035. Opportunities to send spacecraft there occur only once every 26 months due to its varying distance.

R is for RUST: The planet’s red colour is actually caused by oxidation of the iron-rich minerals on the planet’s surface: Mars is covered in rust.

S is for SATELLITES: Mars has two small moons, sometimes known as satellites, that are both unusually shaped and look a bit like potatoes. Scientists believe they were once asteroids that were captured by Mars’ gravitational pull. Both satellites were discovered in 1877 and are named after the characters Phobos (panic/fear) and Deimos (terror/dread) who, in Greek mythology, accompanied their father Ares, god of war, into battle. In 50 million years’ time, Phobos will either crash into Mars’ surface or break up into a ring structure around the planet.

T is for TORNADOS: As large as nearly five miles high, these have been seen strafing the surface of the Martian landscape. Storms can sweep across the entire planet and temperatures can plummet by 20 degrees overnight.

U is for UNIVERSITY OF GUELPH: In October last year, physicists at this Canadian university discovered that as well as being held in Mars’ ice caps, water is also trapped in its apparently dry sub-surface soil.
It is believed to be left over from oceans or pools long since evaporated.

V is for VOLCANO: Olympus Mons is the highest known mountain in the solar system. An extinct volcano, it stands more than 16 miles tall and is more than three times the height of Mount Everest (5.5 miles high). Olympus Mons is 198 miles across and was able to grow so tall because there are no surface crust movements on Mars – unlike on?Earth. So the planet’s crust remained fixed over a hot spot and the volcano continued to discharge lava, bringing it to such a height.

W is for WATER: When the first spacecraft arrived on Mars in the late Sixties and early Seventies, they found canyons, dried-up river beds and lake basins that led to the conclusion that water once flowed on the surface. Nasa announced in March 2007 that if the water in Mars’ south polar ice cap were to melt, it would be sufficient to cover the entire planet to a depth of 36ft.

X is for X-RAY: Images of the planet taken in 2003 captured evidence of the oxygen in its atmosphere. The study of Mars in X-ray wavelengths is now considered crucial to our understanding of our second nearest planetary neighbour (Venus is usually closer).

Y is for YELLOW-BROWN: If you were ever to live on Mars, you would discover that the sky is yellow-brown at noon and pinkish at sunset.

Z is for Z-shaped: This describes the apparent motion of Mars in the night sky when viewed from Earth at the same time every night over several months during certain years. It is caused each time the Earth, which is travelling more rapidly, overtakes and laps Mars, which orbits further from the Sun. The last time the apparent Z-shaped path of Mars was captured on film was between late June 2005 and February 2006.