"NO LIFE ON MARS"

Otago Daily Times, Issue 23689, 22 December 1938, Page 12

"NO LIFE ON MARS"

The panic in the United States which followed the broadcast of Mr H. G. Wells's fantasy, "The War of tha Worlds," in which the earth is invaded by Martians, might have been averted if Dr H. Spencer Jones, the astronomer royal, had spoken in time. Dr Jones said at Leeds last month: "We do se<> on Mars possibilities of some sort of life, but in looking at Mars it is more probable that we are looking at a world that is the home of spent life. Life probably flourished there million.* of yerrs ago, but has been dried up by the atmosphere, and has probably now become almost impossible," Dr Jones added that he was sorry to disabuse the minds of those who Hied to believe in the romantic stories of other worlds written by novelists. It was practically certain that no forms of life existed on other planets. Jupiter, he said, was a rocky world about 22,000 miles in diameter, with an atmosphere extending 6000 miles outwards, and so dense that the pressure was equal to about 1.000,000 tons per square inch. Venus and Mars were the only two planets which were at all likely to supDort life. It had been impossible to detect any oxygen on Venus.