LIFE IN OTHER WORLDS

Greymouth Evening Star, 19 July 1945, Page 2

LIFE IN OTHER WORLDS

ASTRONOMER’S THEORY. The theory that it is reasonable to suppose that life like that on earth exists in some distant parts of the vast universe outside of our own solar system has been advanowl by; Dr. Henry Norris Russell, Princeton' astronomer, one of the foremost authorities on the possibility of life outside this world (reports the New York correspondent of the “Sydney Morning Herald.”) Dr. Russell bases his assumption on discoveries since the war began. “Until the last three years-there was no evidence of the existence of solar systems' similar to ours. Recent photographic observations, however, show that several of the nearest stars must have invNib’o .companion bodies revolving around them, which are detectable because their . attraction causes bright stars io which they are adjacent to move in slightly wavy curves. “The smallest of these companions are for certain dark bodies which may bo fairly called planets. We can find .small companions of this sort only if ithey belong to some of a few hundred stars which lie nearest to the sun. Between many millions of remoter stars there arc very likely great numbers of theiji, and, though the conditions for habitability are fairly stringent, there are many thousands or more on which life is possible.” Dr. Russell points out that in our sun-planet system there are only three possible habitable bodies—Venus, the earth, and Mars. Life has existed and may still exist on Mars, is in lull blast on the earth, and so life has scored in two out of three tries. “It is therefore reasonable to suppose that within the vast universe there may be very many bodies which actually are abodes of Hie.” , . . Dr. Russell explained why only three planets of our system can support life. No kind of life that science knows can exist in heat which can boil water from it, thus ruling out the planet of Mercury, whose noon, day temperature is 600 Fahrenheit. Some plants can stay alive while their tissues are frozen, but they do not grow while the tissues are frozen. That rules out all the remaining nlanets. except Venus, the earth, and Mars, because the others have temperatures of from 180 to 300 below zero. .