Jacque Roger s, age 11, of Cleveland, Texas, for his questions
Is it true that there are people on Mars?
Once, Wernher Von Braun, the rocket expert, wrote a Martian story for a Sunday magazine. This charming story is called science fiction a tale of imagination about the world of science. Von Braun's story told how, in his opinion, there could be intelligent life on Mars but, sad to say, it was only a story. The spacemen who will one day land on Mars may or may not find some of it to be true. Meantime, vie will stick to the facts. And when you really dig into the facts we know for sure, we find that the Red Planet is as fascinating as any tale of science fiction.
Mars is smaller and lighter than the earth and therefore its gravity is much less. An object weighing 100 pounds on earth would weigh only 36 pounds on Mars. Our telescopes reveal the geography of our little neighbor very clearly, but the astronomers are still wrestling with the problem of its atmosphere. And after all, life on Mars would depend upon breathable air, as it doffs on ear th.
The geography of Mars is without oceans, for the entire planet is covered with dry land. There are bright areas of land, dark areas and white polar caps which grow and shrink with the Martian seasons. The bright areas show a reddish color. They cover five eighths of the planet giving it a reddish cast. It is thought that the color comes from a mineral in the soil. We call these bright areas deserts, though they are not sandy wastes like our Sahara and other deserts on earth.
The polar caps are now known to be made of ice, though perhaps only a few inches deep. As they melt in the Martian springy the dark areas thrive and spread towards the equator.
On the surface of Mars, the air pressure i's only one tenth of What it is at sea level on earth. If this thin air were pure oxygen it would not be enough to support tb.e teeming life which we haste on our own luxury planet,, And the~air on Mars is not pure oxygen. Most of it is nitrogen. Carbon dioxide has been detected in the Martian atmosphere but we are not yet sure about its oxygen content. There are traces of water vapor and clouds of ice crystals form high above the Martian landscape.
The luxuries of earth include vast oceans, plenty of water vapor and a constant supply of oxygen from lush plant life. Mars is without these luxuries, these riches we take for granted. Most of the experts think that human settlers would exist on Mars, if they worked hard to improve our little neighbor in the sky.