A MESSAGE TO MARS.

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume L, Issue 16423, 6 May 1924, Page 7

A MESSAGE TO MARS.

SCIENTISTS PREPARING FOR BY FLASH. Shall we at last got a message lo Mars? it lias been known to astronomers that next August the red planet will lie nearer to us than in the past lo years. During this time seienco has keen busily poriceting instruments for communicating with Mars, and from time to time announcements have been made of intended attempts. The greatest of all attempts to reach Mars will lie made by a series of light flashes from the summit of the Jungfrau, in thi' Swiss Alps.

A gigantic oleetro-heliographing apparatus is already being installed, which will concentrate the rays from the dazzling snowtiplds and hurl them in a super-searchlight beam millions of miles through interstellar space. It is the same idea as the headlight of ' a motor-car. This consists of a glass lens concentrating the beams, an electric bulb and a concave mirror to serve as a reflector.

The idea of light communication with Mars has often been suggested. It was considered possible to get the necessary amount of light and to concentrate it, but the problem has always been how to make a gigantic mirror miles square, sufficiently powerful to reflect the rays millions of miles through the air. On the Jungfrau the question is solved. A neighboring mountain presents an enormous concave slope of shining snow. Innumerable great calcium flares will take the place of the electric bulb in the motor headlight, and a huge d<|iblo lens capable of being pointed like a, cannon will be set on the topmost peak to throw the rays against the snow reflector, and so up through space to Mars. Ten thousand giant calcium flares, and a reflector more than three miles in diameter, will develop a light roughly estimated at two million billion candlepower! It is with this light that science hopes to traverse the 35,000,000 miles that will separate us from Mars in August next. Will the Martians (assuming intelligent life exists on that that planet) receive and understand our signals? Then, will they flash us back a reply? Some years ago, watching astronomers detected what seemed to be a scries of light flashes on the planet Mars.

Since then astronomers have watched with even greater care the geometric lines that are by some thought to be canals and by others lines of vegetation. These change in color as the seasons pass,’ from red to yellow, and to brown, in the same way as our own landscape changes. If these changes indicate the existence of vegetable life on Mars, human life is only one step further. Mars is older than the earth, and its inhabitants, if there be any, have had some millions of years longer to develop. This is the system that will probably be used from the Alps. Two light flashes a few seconds apart, then another two, then, after a pause, four flashes. If there arc Martians to catch the signal, they will realise that reason is behind them. Perhaps they will answer in the same way. If their answer is sent back immediately the whole thing would take less than seven minutes, for light travels IS(5,0()0 miles per second.

No less important than the sending of the message is the catching of a possible reply. The 35,000,000 miles of actual distance to Mars will be reduced to about 50,000 miles of visual distance by the high-powered telescopes through which scientists will bo watching. Camille Flamnntrion, the great French astronomer, will be stationed in the bottom of a mine shaft in Chili, South America. The telescope through which he will scan the heavens will utilise one of the mine tunnels for a tube.