Is there Life on Mars?

Progress, Volume IV, Issue 5, 1 March 1909, Page 153

Is there Life on Mars?

Is there life on the planet Mars? Some prominent writers actually write much of the "Martians," and with the firmness of touch always used in dealing with living people. Neither are they alone. On the contrary, they are supported by the recent conclusions of a man of science. Professor Lowell, of Flagstaff, Arizona, in his now famous hook of last year, made no secret of his belief in life on Mars. He went so far as to introduce the Avorld to an elaborate and gigantic system of canals, constructed by a race of considerable engineering skill, by which much space was rescued from the vest deserts constituting the bulk of the planet. This conclusion, emphatic and positive as it was, has been since challenged by Professor Stoller, of Union College, Shenectady, New York, in spite of the fact that it has received the respectful consideration of many men of science. He takes his stand on the difference in physical conditions between the earth and Mars. The facts agreed upon by astronomical authority are that, the diameter of Mars (4200 miles) is about half that of the earth; that its volume is equal to oneseventh part of the earth's; and that the force of gravity is but three-eighths of what it is with us. This low gravity implies a rare atmosphere, estimated by Pickering, of Harvard, at one-tenth of the density of the earth's, and of its composition little is known, except that it contains aqueous vapour in small quantities, as clouds are seldom seen by observers. The mean distance of Mars from the sun is 135,000,000 miles, or 45,000,000 miles more than ours. The heat received from the sun 's rays in Mars is as one to two. and the mean temperature, even of the temperate and tropical regions, is not much above 32 degrees. The tenuity of the atmosphere both renders the temperature lower, and makes the fluctuations very great between day and night ; as the mitigation by day would be small and the radiation by night very great. This effect is aggravated by the greater length of the Martian year (687 days), though the Martian day (24 hours 38 minutes) is practically the same as ours. In Mars there are neither mountains nor seas. Now, as to the life inhabiting this planet. The theory of Professor Stoller is very simple and direct. First, as to the origin. ''Protoplasm" with many is the accepted first form — the "physical basis of life" of -K-Huxley. This has so completely baffled science in the matter of the conditions of its production on this planet that it must necessarily be put aside as a thing not to be handled as to its possibilities in any other. The consideration is therefore confined to the nature of the beings that can exist under the conditions of the planet as known to us, through the observations and researches of the astronomers. Firstly, as there are no oceans, and as all the water on the planet is probably due to the annual melting of the polar ice-caps, there can be but little marine life. Moreover, as there are no zones divided from one another by seas or mountains, the fauna of Mars must present much less variety of types than are

to be found on the earth. If. then, there is life on Mars, there can not be that wealth and variety of it with which we of the earth are familiar. Secondly, these creatures must be able to withstand extreme diurnal changes of temperature ; their muscular system to meet the lower gravity of Mars would need to be only three-eighths of the strength required on the earth, and last, but by no means least, they would have to be able to live in a very rare atmosphere. To do this they must have ten times the lung capacity, and they must be able to do with a very meagre supply of oxygen. This is the fatal objection to the theory of life on Mars, at all events in the higher organisms, for even if the whole Martian atmosphere consisted of oxygen, there would be then only half as much per cubic foot as in the earth's atmosphere. "But," says the Professor, "this supposition is impossible, as an air composed wholly of oxygen would have the effect of immediately burning up the animals that tried to breathe it." If, in order to increase the buoyancy of this atmosphere for the sake of the birds, if there be birds, as the Martian atmosphere is too thin to support flight, we give weight by adding in our imagination carbonic acid to the atmosphere, we only further complicate the problem of respiration, which already appears so impossible. In fact, it is difficult to imagine why the Professor raises the question of flight at all, for if the birds cannot breathe, it is not worth while considering whether they can fly. But he is a most careful and painstaking Professor, and he goes still further, and considers the question of the ancestral history of the possible Martian animals. The ancestral history of man carries us back about one-thirtieth ot the whole of the geological period of the earth, as estimated by the two methods of erosion plus sedimentary accumulation, and the conduct of fused rocks in cooling, at 24 to 30 million years. With us there was a mollusc age, a fish age, and a reptile age, before the first mammals, and of these there were many orders before man appeared. May there not be some of the lower orders of life in Mars now ? But as the conditions do not appear to be favourable to the higher orders which can not breathe, and there is no evidence to show that these conditions are changing, it seems bootless to take the matter further. The definite conclusion so far as we can follow Professor Stoller, is that the atmosphere of Mars is against the hope of finding any of the higher types of life there. It would be possible to live on Mars with a flabby muscular system. Life might be very pleasant there to creatures with an attenuated, elongated bone structure. Some thickening of the drums of the ears might make it endurable, in spite of the wrangling power of a people with ten times the lung capacity of a Billingsgate fishwife ; and it is easy to imagine some arrangement of the skin by which the great diurnal changes of temperature might be deprived of even the unpleasant part of their effect. But the difficulty of the breathing appears insurmountable. It forces us to believe that if there are beings of as high an order as man in Mars, the conditions of life must be radically different. But that would be begging the question. It is another way of saying that in an atmosphere in which breathing is impossible we cannot conceive the possibility of life as we know it on earth.