Mars had fascinated many an astronomer and there had been many science fiction novels about Martians visiting us. The HG Wells “War of the Worlds” is a classic work creating a fascinating tale about the Martians despite it not being a nice one.
I always fondly remember the Mars series by Edgar Rice Burroughs which I read a long time ago and found the fascinating. It used the low gravitation of Mars which is about one third of the earth and gives higher muscle power to a guy named John Carter from Earth who accidentally gets transferred to Mars.
That transfer is certainly
impossible but that was a fantasy. Edgar Rice Burroughs really gives rein to
his full imagination in that first Mars series novel named “Princess of Mars”.
Mars is a desert like planet with a thin
layer of atmosphere, that too consisting of Carbon Dioxide and Nitrogen. This is the only
planet in the solar system where we sent rovers to roam the landscape. We have
found strong evidence that Mars was much wetter and warmer with a thicker
atmosphere billions of years ago.
MARTIAN LANDSCAPE
Mars was named by the ancient Romans in the
name of their God of war as the Planet appeared red which reminded them of
blood. Iron minerals in the Martian dirt oxidize (rust) to give it its red
colour.
Although Mars is unlikely to have any life
forms today, there are strong indications that life exited once on Mars.
Mars has a diameter of 3390 km which is about
half the size of Earth. Mars is 228 million Km from the Sun (average). The
distance of Mars from the earth varies from just 54 million Km to 225 million
Km as both the earth and Mars are orbiting the Sun.
Mars rotates on its axis in about 1 day just
like the earth, but the year on Mars is a little over double that of ours. Surprisingly
even the axis of rotation of Mars is tilted somewhat similar to earth giving it
seasons.
Mars has 2 moons: Phobos (20 odd Km across) and
Deimos (13 odd Km across), both of which are too small and were probably
captured asteroids unlike our moon. They are uneven in shape with Deimos being
more distorted.
Mars has a very large canyon which is 4800 Km
across and is 320 Km at the widest, and 7 Km at the deepest.
Mars has the largest volcano in the solar
system named Olympus Mons. It is 3 times taller than Mount Everest.
OLYMPUS MONS-TALLEST VOLCANO IN THE SOLAR SYSTEM
There are a number of evidences that water
existed in plenty on Mars at about 1 billion years ago. There is water on Mars
today but it is only found as ice under the surface in the Polar Regions.
Mars has very thin atmosphere which mostly
consist of Carbon Dioxide, Nitrogen and Argon. It does not offer any protection
against the hits of asteroids, comets and meteorites not to speak of Cosmic
rays.
MARTIAN LANDSCAPE
The Martian temperature varies between 20
degrees Celsius and -153 degrees Celsius where nothing can survive.
In one billion years, Earth too would become as
uninhabitable as Mars but for different reasons. The Suns luminosity would
increase by 10% by then, causing global temperature to increase, the oceans
would start to evaporate and our atmosphere would lose Oxygen which would wipe
out most complex life forms and leave a dead desert planet which Mars is today
but only much hotter. Anyway 100 crore years are far too many to be worried
about, because the human species was born only 300,000 years ago.
Look at the terrain of Mars in the following
video filmed by one of the Rovers, it is almost similar to the Earth but the difference is it is barren
and is without water.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vy_RPd0rblI
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