Probes to Other Planets

BOTH the United States and the Soviet Union have sent spacecraft to the vicinity of other planets. Is there any indication of evolved life on them? What has been learned about these planets?

As to the United States space probes to Mars, a scientist in the Mariner 9 space project said: “Mars has a character all its own. It is not earth-like or moon-like, it is Mars-like.”

What, then, is Mars like? Mariner photographs through color filters show that the soil of Mars is reddish in color. This confirms observations through telescopes on earth that Mars is a “red planet.”

Four major “geological provinces” have been discovered on Mars, with the aid of thousands of pictures beamed back by spacecraft. The first of these regions is a volcanic province in the planet’s western hemisphere. This is an area of at least nine giant volcanoes. These are dominated by gigantic Nix Olympica, 310 miles across at its base; its upper rim is estimated to be more than three times as high as the over-29,000-foot-high Mt. Everest.

Another of these provinces has a very rugged terrain, which includes many canyons. The greatest of these canyons in this region is reported to be ten times the length of the Grand Canyon and about four times as deep. In other words, the gorge is estimated to be 2,500 miles long, and 75 miles wide and nearly four miles deep.

A third region is one that is heavily cratered. This pockmarked area resembles the moon.

The fourth region is a spectacular expanse of stair-step terraces and deep grooves radiating from the south polar region.

It was also found that near the south pole is a small “ice cap” about 200 miles in diameter, even in the height of summer. Some scientists believe that this “ice cap” is not all frozen carbon dioxide (dry ice) but that, in part, it may be frozen water.

Jupiter, the largest of the nine planets in our solar system, now has a spacecraft bound for it. This is the Pioneer 10 spacecraft, launched from Cape Kennedy March 2, 1972. Pioneer 10 is not scheduled to reach the vicinity of Jupiter until December 1973, since the journey is 620 million miles. More probes to Jupiter are planned. Says a news report: “The National Aeronautics and Space Administration plans to look for life on the planet with a space craft scheduled to fly past it in 1979.”

[Picture on page 10]

RIGHT: A vast chasm about 75 miles wide and 300 miles long, and branching canyons on Mars, based on photo taken by Mariner 9. ABOVE: An artist’s rendering of a narrow section of one of these canyons on Mars, two miles deep. A report said: “Mars is a far more complicated body than we had thought.”

The American Mariner 9 probe indicated that temperatures reach 80 degrees F. above zero in early afternoon.

Atmospheric winds on Mars reach speeds of up to 115 miles an hour. During global dust storms, winds are thought to reach a velocity of 300 miles an hour.

As for the controversial “canals” on Mars, in 1895 one astronomer suggested that they were constructed by intelligent beings to carry water from Mars’ polar ice caps to its equatorial deserts. The canals have long remained a riddle. What, then, did Mariner 9 discover? After more than 7,000 television pictures, analyses showed no canals. The mysterious “canals” were an optical illusion. Explained The National Observer of November 25, 1972: “The fierce Martian winds blow light sand and dust over the planet, and, in so doing, uncover and re-cover patches of darker material. That’s enough for someone wanting to find canals to see them.” The canyons on Mars also appear to have contributed to the idea that there were canals on the “red planet.”

But now, what about the prospect of evolved life on Mars? Dr. Rudolph A. Hanel of the Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, one of the Mariner 9 project scientists, said: “We have not seen any sign of life on Mars.”

Astronaut Frank Borman said:

“When you look at our earth from two hundred and forty thousand miles away, especially over a horizon that has been bombarded for eons, you see that our planet is the only thing in the universe that has any color in it. You don’t know whether the blue is water or the blue is land . . . We share such a beautiful planet. . . . the overwhelming wonderment is why in the world we can’t appreciate what we have.”

Such a beautiful home in space as man has did not get here by chance or accident. Just as the moon could not have gone into orbit around the earth by accident, the earth could not have got in its orbit around the sun by chance. Just before the launching of the Apollo 17 lunar mission, Astronaut Eugene Cernan, on his second flight to the vicinity of the moon, said:

“When you look back at the earth from the moon and you see the perfectness of it and the beauty of it and the logic of it all, you know it didn’t happen by accident. It is moving with beauty and you get a feeling that you are looking at our earth as God, whoever that God might be, envisioned it when he created it. I’m anxious to get back and get that feeling again.”​—New York “Times,” December 8, 1972.