SCIENCE
Volume ninety-nine, Issue Ten
Look Up! Stupid Chris Gibson | Science Writer Let’s talk about Mars, friends. Well, I’ll write about it and you’ll read and maybe learn something, if all goes well. Mars, after all, figures big in our future. We’ve got our eye on the little red rock, and in half a century or so a tiny group of us relatively advanced apes will plant their boots in the rusty red dust of Mars and say: “Is this it?” Mars, to be frank, is a stark place. Compared to the wild and outrageous visions we ascribed to it up until the middle of the last century, the Red Planet is bit of a letdown, on the surface at least. It’s dusty. It’s rocky. It’s as rusty as an old Buick. Nothing much changes, at least on a large scale; geologically speaking, Mars is dead (using the term “geology” to refer to Mars is technically incorrect. Meh). Dust devils lazily wind across the russet plains. The ice caps (mostly “dry” ice, frozen CO2, and some water ice) disappear and reappear with the seasons. The sun shines wearily in a sky as pink as a salmon steak. In short, Mars is a lazy old Western town, tired and worn and stagnant. I’m being glib, though. Mars, for every ho-hum detail, responds with some of the most exotic scenery in the solar system. Most of the features on Mars are familiar to Earth, but taken to wild new extremes. Earth has many canyons, for example, but none match the 4000-kilometer long, 200-kilometer wide gash called Valles Marineris, which on Earth would stretch most of the way across the United States and cuts seven kilometers deep into the Red Planet’s skin. Similarly, no mountain on Earth (or anywhere else that we know about) matches the enormous proportions of Olympus Mons, 27 kilometers high and a base as big as Missouri. Since Mars has no tectonic plates, the volcano remained over its hotspot for millions of years, building it to its current colossal height. Mars also hosts many impact craters, which remain in mint condition since there are few forces to alter them on the Martian surface. Humans are hell-bent on colonizing Mars at some point, but to do so would require surmounting a dizzying number challenges. The trip itself
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would take months, during which the astronauts would be exposed to the punishing effects of radiation, microgravity, and boredom. Mars herself does not have her arms spread wide in welcome; dust storms can engulf the entire planet for months, the atmosphere is thin and ineffective as a temperature regulator or radiation shield, and what water there is could be locked away beneath the planet or too scarce to be of use. Two-thirds of all missions to Mars have ended in failure. Sending people out across the gulf against those odds seems mad. But as our own planet becomes more and more crowded, we increasingly turn our eyes to the unspoiled vistas of the solar system. Someday, perhaps, our grandchildren will pay dearly to have a condo on the Moon. Imagine the view!
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Tuition Fee Income Tax Rebate ad Publication: The Quill (University of Brandon) Size: 5.5 x 10.25 (Half Page) Issue Date: Bi-Wkly - Wed. Jan. 19 & Feb. 2