LIFE ON OTHER PLANETS

Evening Star, Issue 20980, 19 December 1931, Page 19

LIFE ON OTHER PLANETS

MARS AND VENUS Looking at tho physical condition of the other planets within our solar system (writes Professor Stetson), we find little to encourage us to believe that any life resembling our own could possibly exist on more than two planets besides the earth. I refer to the planets Venus and Mars. The planet Venus is nearly a twin sister to the earth, so far as its size is concerned. It has an appreciable atmosphere, and may possibly be in a condition to support some form of life. The greater nearness to the sun would lead ns to suppose a much higher temperature than that to which we are accustomed on the earth, but perhaps it would not be intolerable. In tho case of Mars the situation is quite different. On account of the eccentricity of its orbit, every fifteen years Mars comes within a distance of 35,000,000 miles of the earth. As astronomical distances go, this is what we call a dose approach. Astronomers may never he able to state definitely whether Mars is inhabited or not, but we can say that information as to tho habitability of the planet is more promising now than heretofore. We must bear in mind, however, that oven if life should exist on onr neighbouring planet it would be vastlv different from anything with whirl i wo are acquainted. As to the possible existence of life elsewhere in the universe, an astronomer ns such can say hut little. Jt seems almost unthinkable that in a universe of several million suns there should not revolve here and there, even though rarely, planetary systems not very different from that surrounding our own sun. lu such systems around some distant stars there may he now some planet far more like the earth than is the planet Mars.. >