Focus 580; Magnificent Mars

In this first hour of the program we'll be talking about Mars. Our guest for the program is Ken Croswell. He's an astronomer. He's also the author of several highly acclaimed books including magnificent universe and see the stars your first guide to the night sky. And he is the author of a new book that's just out now it's titled magnificent Mars it is published by the free press and it is a large format book that is full of some really stunning photographs. If you're interested in astronomy or maybe you're looking for a gift for somebody who is interested in astronomy you might take a look at the book because I'm sure that anybody who was interested in stars in the planets would find this book really exciting and you might also go out and look at for some of the other books that I can't cross well has written if you're interested in astronomy. He earned his Ph.D. in astronomy from Harvard he now makes his home in Berkeley California. And he is talking to us by telephone. As we talk we'll try to talk a little bit about the basics what we know about Mars. Nowadays he argues in the book that in fact Mars may indeed hold the key to whether there is life elsewhere in the university also makes

the argument that in fact Mars will be the first planet that humans from the earth people from the earth land on. We'll also talk about some spacecraft that are on the way to Mars exploratory craft. One of them I think is supposed to get there on Christmas Day. And then there are a couple of others that are scheduled to arrive in January that I know astronomers and scientists hope will add to our store of knowledge about Mars. So we'll talk about all of that. And one of the questions people have are welcome here in Champaign Urbana 3 3 3 9 4 5 5 and we have a toll free line that's good anywhere you can hear us and that is 800 to 2 2 9 4 5 5. Mr. Gross Well hello good to be here. Thanks for talking with us. We appreciate it. And it is really a beautiful book that the photographs are just amazing they're really knock your socks off pictures. And I'm sure that anybody who was interested in astronomy in planetary science and so forth would think that it was just pretty cool.

Well thank you very much. Yeah I aim for magnificent Mars to be the most beautiful most lavish most extravagant book ever done about the red planet as you can see that weighs nearly five pounds and I'll be emitted nearly all the images are in full color and I took pains to actually have experts asked a photographer by the name of Tony Hallett digitally we process all the enough images so that they look even better than NASA's official releases. So that's why the book looks stunning as it does. And certainly a good guess of of all the naked eye planets Mars is distinctive because of its color. And certainly if people had noticed that before this past summer when and early fall when Mars was so prominent It would have had it had come closer to the Earth than it had in a long long time. It was very bright you could hardly miss it and was certainly one of the ways you would know what it was you were looking at was by that color it for that reason ancients associated that with with images of blood and war and

violence. It was named for the the Greeks and the Romans both neighbored for their gods of war. Is that association between Mars and Marshall things fairly broadly cross-cultural. Yeah it seems to be a number of cultures associate Mars with bad things. Doom and Gloom and so forth. Now we know planet Mars is actually a very interesting planet that's going to tell us we hope a lot about life right here on Earth and perhaps throughout the universe. But you're absolutely right age two cultures. All that red color actually orange color reminded them of blood and the surprising thing is we scientists know today that pars is indeed red for the same reason that blood is blood turns red when iron bearing hemoglobin joins with oxygen and the same two elements iron and oxygen account for the red color over the Martian surface because they joined together on the Martian surface to form rust and iron oxide. So the ancients actually got it right. They didn't they. It reminded them of blood and indeed Mars has

read for the same reason that blood is because it's got iron oxygen on surface and the book does include some of the pictures of the surface of Mars. Actually we're taking on the surface of Mars by the nose would have been Viking. This craft and if if we could do that if we could go there and step out on the Martian surface and take a walk around Mars would it indeed look that way would it be read like that. Yeah it would look you know those images are pretty much what you would see if you were right there on the Martian surface. So far nothing has led to three spacecraft on Mars. The first two were in 1976 so they were the Viking one Viking two Landers and then 1907 Gnatho landed the Pathfinder spacecraft and in magnificent Mars include images from all three of those spacecraft and they all show you pretty much what Mars would look like if you were right there on the surface. And the exciting thing is that NASA's landing two more spacecraft in January and the images from those spacecraft are supposed to be even better. And the images that you see of the surface there.

So those are those are the ones who are going to land in January not what. There is also a craft that was launched by a. A European rocket and it was built by the British. It's an interesting enough it's named after the ship that Charles Darwin took on his famous voyage of the Beagle. And this is the one that as as I understand it is supposed to land on Christmas Day. Is that how it's going to land on Christmas Day British time and Christmas Eve our time. I mean you write the name of the Beagle who is going to land in the eyesight of impact basin on Mars the impact basin was formed by a big asteroid or comet many billions of years ago and that spacecraft is going to land right in that impact crater and then Nassau will be landing on January 3rd our time. And January 20 for us to mark spacecraft on the planet. So if all goes well we will have successful landings over the next month. If the if there's anything probably that people maybe will think about in terms of Mars remember about Mars were the observations of Percival Lowell and they may not

know his name but this is the man he and quite a famous name in astronomy. Oh yes. This man a man who made an observation of the planet and looked at the planet and saw markings that and he was the guy who said that. They look like they might be canals and that's so with where we get this idea of of the canals of Mars and then that led to a fair amount of fanciful speculation about the possibility that those had been constructed and that there were people there were maybe at one time that there had been people there. And it seems that though fairly fairly soon after he made that observation even at the time a lot of other astronomers said no that that's not right. That that that he is this is not a correct observation it's some sort of artifact. And that in fact there are no such things. Certainly nothing that had been constructed on the surface of Mars. That's right. And yet and yet his ideas really have lived on. It's true science fiction but there are no canals on Mars we now

know that for a fact there are no canals. But his ideas very colorful ideas are putting ideas which capture the public's imagination even as they were condemned by most other astronomers. You know ignited a lot of interest and you know a lot of the science fiction of the last hundred years has actually you know you can trace it right back to Percival Lowell I mean H.G. Wells War of the worlds for example the other creatures that were invading Earth came from the planet Mars Flash Gordon right. Pearl I mean all I think all these people were inspired by the visions of Persephone. The story actually started with an Italian astronomer by the name of Giovanni chaper Elie who in 1877 saw what he thought were straight lines across the Martian surface and he named them canal E which in Tahlia means either channels or can now. Now a channel is simply a natural waterway. No big deal but it now is an artificial waterway and signifies obviously intelligent life because only only intelligent beings can create an artificial

waterway. And then in 1892 the story goes that person Apollo heard that chaparral he was losing his eyesight and he decided that at that point that he would have that glisten of Observatory to observe the planet Mars and he did so in that observatory actually still exists. Slovo Observatory in Flagstaff Arizona is still doing. Good scientific work but LOL The main goal was to study Mars and he claimed to observe hundreds of canals across the Martian surface and there's no question there he he was sincere in what he thought he saw. But we now know that what he saw was really an optical illusion when Mars is actually a very difficult planet to see you mentioned earlier that this summer the planet came very close to Mars and probably a number of your listeners went outon and look at it through a telescope and in all likelihood they were quite disappointed in what they saw it's not a very impressive sight through the telescope. Galileo who discovered spots on the sun craters on the moon the moons of Jupiter the phases of Venus and what we now know is the ring of Saturn. Also look at Mars through his telescope but he never

saw anything so Mars is a very difficult object to observe through the telescope and the observations we now know are just plain wrong but because of those canals he constructed a very colorful and captivating parry that Mars was the home of a dying civilization whose whose planet was drying up and the Martians had dug can ours from the polar cap to the equator to ferry water to the equatorial regions where most of the Martians were and as I mentioned his ideas have lived even to them even Even today I get asked the question. Does Mars have now than before so the answer is no that there is no intelligent life on Mars although in the past there might have been no less. But that's life on the planet surface. There's a wonderful photograph of Lol in the book. Wonderful old sepia tone photo of him sitting looking into an enormous telescope back in the days when telescopes were things that you put your eye up to as opposed to you know he looked into yes as opposed to a computer. Yes that's an excellent image. Percival and I may say so I think magnet. It's been

published many times before but I think that Mars actually has the very best reproduction of that image it's a very romantic image. And I actually got that straight from Lowell. There were Tony I asked them to get the very very highest largest resolution image possible and then tell me how as we processed the image to bring it out at its very best sense we produced very large in the book and by 14 inches. And that's what you thought you know when you think of astronomer Well you think of a person just like this photograph you think of a person sitting in a chair with their eye up to the eyepiece of of an instrument. However however big and I guess if you think of a big astronomer you think of a big telescope and that's probably the image that a lot of people will still have of of what astronomers do. Yes yes and of course nowadays it's pretty rare that professional astronomers actually look through the eyepiece of a telescope. We typically have that eyepiece connected to a computer that records what what's being seen but nonetheless I mean that's a wonderful image and it's an accurate image of first of all I mean even his critics back in the

1890s acknowledge that you know his observations were you know I mean he was observing the planet night after night hundreds of nights. I mean no one could argue that he was working hard on the problem of Mars just unfortunate that he got it wrong. Now he did achieve a certain posthumous indication because during his life he even as he was a advocating this very colorful Martian theory in secret he was conducting a search for another planet in the solar system a ninth planet. And fortunately during his life he never found it. But after his death Lowell Observatory did find a new planet beyond your anus and Neptune a planet now named Pluto. And you'll notice that the first two letters a PUT of name are the initials of Percival Lowell. Very nice nice. Our guest is Ken CROSS Well he's both an astronomer and a writer about astronomy and we're talking about some of what you'll find in his new book it's titled magnificent Mars. It's published by Free Press and it is a large format book and it is full of

really stunning photographs. The planet Mars and a text that talks about what it is we know about Mars and how it was formed and what it is made of. And if you are interested in astronomy I'm sure that you would find it a fascinating book. It also questions are welcome here if you'd like to call and talk with our guest. Ken CROSS Well the number here in Champaign Urbana 3 3 3 9 4 5 5. We also have a toll free line that's good to anywhere that you can hear us and that is 800 to 2 2 9 4 5 5. Talk a bit earlier about that we talked about the Mars having this distinctive color this reddish color and that in fact if you look at the photographs you see that and I asked if if we could walk on the surface would it really look that way and you said yes indeed it would and that it's it's a sort of a rusty orange for the reason that anything here on earth sometimes turns rusty orange because it's rusty. It is. It's iron that has been oxidized and that's why it looks that way. What basically what is Mars made of and is

it relatively speaking made of the some of the same things that we find right here. It's basically made of the same stuff right here on Earth. The density of Mars is rather similar to the earth the lighter the probably has a bit less iron but it's you know basically the surface is mostly still Conon oxygen which is true of the earth. It's got more iron on its surface also more magnesium on surface than the Earth. So someday you know if you know presumably if you grow crops on Mars they would require higher levels of iron and magnesium and I can I can see it now health food stores carrying products from Mars both think that they're high in iron and magnesium simply because the Martian soil is. The but the plan is basically made of the same stuff as the earth. The unfortunate thing about the point of though is that it's got a very thin atmosphere and so it's unable to trap terribly much heat from the sun. And of course it's farther from the sun so it's a cold planet a cold dry planet but in the past billions of years ago some

four billion years ago we've got good evidence that water flowed on the Martian surface and that the surface may have been much warmer. So a lot of the study of Mars is devoted to understanding the ancient history of Mars when it may have been a much friendlier planet than it is today. We have a caller from calling up in the northern northwestern part of Illinois in Sycamore will go right there to our line number four. Hello good morning. I've always been interested in planetary observation and I've heard it said that the refracting telescopes are much more effective for planetary observation than reflecting telescopes and I was wondering if you had any thoughts on that issue. I'm not an expert on observing the planet through telescopes but what you've said is what I've heard as well that we fracking telescopes are better for planetary observations and that this actually raises a point that I try to make and that is if you're you don't have much initial knowledge of astronomy the worst thing you can do is to buy

a telescope as your first step you really ought to explore the night sky with the knock you letters in a simple book on finding the stars and only later should you actually get a telescope because different telescopes are sort of geared toward different types of observations refracting telescope as you mention is a really good telescope for planetary observations but you may decide you're actually not interested in planetary observations you'd rather observe the star clusters of galaxies or nebulae in which case you'd want a different type of telescope so that the point here is that as a first step in astronomy getting a telescope is a terrible choice it's much much better just to have a pair of binoculars and explore the night sky with a simple book. And then maybe after a year of that then get a telescope because then you'll know what you're most interested in. OK thank you very much for and thanks for the call maybe we should take a minute here to explain that that there are there are these two basically two different kinds of telescopes. There is the refractor which is probably what people think about when they think about a telescope which is

basically a tube with lenses on either end. And you look in one and you're looking straight through. The other is the reflector. That's the one that has has a mirror that collects light and you want to do that because you one want to collect basically as much light as you possibly can in the telescope because a lot of things that you're looking at are a long way away and they're not that bright and that that telescope is going to probably going to be shorter bigger around and you know at least if you're going to be looking at stars and and things like that probably that's going to give you a better image in a much smaller package than the than they re for the refractor. That's right and I would like to have another advantage which is you know we measure the size of the telescope and the size of the mirror and the the reflecting telescope is a lot less per inch. So for example an eight inch we can telescope is a lot cheaper than age we fracked think.

So if you want to show you where you can see more but it won't cost you as much. That's right. That's right. But if you really want to do planetary observations being absolutely certain of that then no you want to specialize and ignore the general advice. Again questions welcome here we're talking with Ken KRAUSE Well he's author of a new book about Mars which is titled magnificent Mars and he's written some other books about astronomy as well. If you have questions you can call us 3 3 3 9 4 5 5 toll free 800 to 2 2 9 4 5 5. You talking just a little bit earlier about the fact that Martin the atmosphere of Mars today is very thin but we think that in the past it was different in the fact conditions on the surface of the planet in the past would have been. For what. What happened to the Martian atmosphere. That's a really important question because we think that some 4 billion years ago the atmosphere of Mars is actually sicker than the atmosphere of the present earth. And the reason that's so very important is because an atmosphere if it's got greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide and water

vapor it can raise the planet's temperature quite a bit. And in fact believe it or not the Earth is actually too far from the sun to be as warm and wet as it is in the earth ought to be an ice covered planet with a mean temperature of 0 degrees Fahrenheit and it's only because we have an atmosphere that contains small quantities of carbon dioxide and water vapor that witchcraft form from the sun of the earth as pleasant as it is. And so Mars being so much farther from the sun where we needed that atmosphere in order to be warm. So when you ask the question what happened to that ancient atmosphere why why is it that the atmosphere of Mars is now so thin less than 1 percent of the of the earth and we think it's basically due to the small size of the planet Mars. Mars unfortunately was born with only one thousandth the mass of the earth and so early in the solar system's life when there were lots of asteroids and comets. Mashing into the planet the Earth was able to hold on to its atmosphere. But Mars was not. Many of them packed flattered that air into space and furthermore

entered Mars we now know had a magnetic field that protected the atmosphere from the solar wind which is the being the particles that comes out of the sun and tries to tear away air. But unfortunately again because Mars has formed so small it lost its magnetic field early on and at that point the solar wind could also pair the air away and then the third reason is because Mark was the source of its air the volcanoes of Mars actually erupted not just the lava but air gases like carbon dioxide water vapor nitrogen. That's how ancient Mars got it. They had unfortunately again because Mars was born so small. Those volcanoes shut off prematurely. So for those three reasons Mars lost its atmosphere and as a result suffered a catastrophic climate change and became much much colder and much much drier. And you know it's important to understand the basic processes of planetary evolution because we obviously don't want the same thing to happen to the earth the earth as a wonderful planet now and we'd all like to keep it that way.

One of the things that that you can see a guess you have to have a reasonable telescope but of. Any features that you're going to see once you start to see features. The one of the things you're going to see is that there is a polar ice cap on Mars and in this is water ice right. It's partially water ice it's also partially carbon dioxide in the Martian atmosphere is 95 percent carbon dioxide which is the main gas that we exhale when we breathe. And Mars actually gets so cold that during the winter some of that atmosphere freezes out on to the polar cap in fact Mars can move as much as 25 percent of its atmosphere during the winter because so much carbon dioxide ice freezes out of the atmosphere. But the polar cap is made both of water ice and of carbon dioxide. And this is one of the very early things going back to the like 600 700 that inspired astronomers to really consider that this planet looks very similar to Earth. I mean it had polar caps the way the Earth doesn't have clouds. It rotated about once every 24 hours. It had an axial tilt very similar

to the earth which is twenty three point four degrees. So there are a lot of things even before Percival Lowell there are a lot of things that suggest that that Mars is a rather Earth like planet. And of course one person follow put forth his colorful theory of you know intelligent people alas not people intelligent beings living big now that just reinforce those earlier preconceptions about the planet being a friendly place for life. We have someone else to talk with here a caller over in Terre Haute Ind.. Our line for right here below. I was wondering what your structures on the surface. What are you crying about were great. Yet what are those canals the personal hundreds of canals that Percival thought he mapped in. Unfortunately with one exception they're all optical illusion caused by basically his telescope and combination of the telescope and his eyeball and other stars at the same time for example the great server Edward

Emerson Barnard looked at Mars he never saw any canals at all. Now there is one exception one of the canals that observers did report on the Martian surface. We now know does a line up with a feature on the Martian surface in the feature the very remarkable structure. It's a gigantic canyon called ballast Mira Nair's that stretches thousands of miles and you could stretch be transported back to hear it. It could stretch from Cleveland to San Francisco that's how long it is. And it was not formed by water the way the Grand Canyon in Arizona with forms is actually formed by the uplift of a volcanic plateau on Mars and the uplift of the volcanic plateau actually cracked the surface and created these huge canyons on Mars. But with that singular exception the other features the other canals that observers reported in the 1890s in and around that time are simply optical illusions. Unfortunately. Of the questions again are welcome the number here in Champaign Urbana 3 3 3 9 4 5

5 toll free 800 to 2 2 9 4 5 5. Just little bit ago we were talking about the fact that there is this polar cap and that some of that is is the is water ice. What is the thinking about the possibility that there is water elsewhere on the planet. There is definitely water ice also beneath the surface elsewhere. This is one of the new results. We actually kind of sad that that actually kind of figure this out back in the 70s and 80s but it was only confirmed in just the last couple years. In my book Magnificent Mars I include a wonderful four color image showing where the water ice is beneath the surface. This is a map made by the Odyssey spacecraft which was launched in 21 and made that map and twenty two. And that spacecraft was actually able to see subsurface water ice and you see it at the high latitudes in the north and the south. So there's not only water ice in the at the polar caps especially the north polar

cap. We're not quite certain of the south polar cap but the evidence is that it's probably there too. But there's also water ice beneath the surface at the high latitudes in the north and the south and then the Viking to land which landed in 1976 landed the farthest north of any of the spacecraft yet. Landed on the planet Mars. And as winter came on you you actually saw the frost covering the ground I include an image around page 150 of magnificent Mars showing the frost on the Martian surface and some of that Frost is in fact water right. So there's no question that even today even in its present cold Tri-State Mars has water in the form of ice. The big question is you know how much water in the form of liquid form which is what we living beings need how much water that was there in the past. One of the things we know is certainly about the earth is that there are there are living things that live under the harshest under some of the harshest

conditions that this planet has to offer which makes it maybe a little bit more reasonable to think that somewhere if not on Mars somewhere else in even in our solar system there is the possibility that there are there are living things and that it's just a matter of us figuring out how to go looking. So make the observations to see if in fact that that is that is possible. What is the thinking about Mars in terms of weather. I guess the question would be whether there ever was any thing living on the planet and whether Now there might be possibly somewhere something living on the planet. Well certainly one of the things that biologists have discovered in the last couple decades is that life on earth can that exist in some pretty remarkable conditions conditions that would easily kill any conditions of you know for example subject to harsh radiation or extremely high temperatures. And various other things that part that increases the chance that there might be some form of

life elsewhere in the universe that the conditions for life are. That that we don't have to restrict ourselves to you know 70 degrees Fahrenheit conditions if we want to look for life. And in the case of Mars I mean the most conservative hypothesis would be that billions of years ago when it was warmer and wetter that Mars gave form to some form of microbial life. Microscopic life even to this day here on Earth is actually the most common form of life. I mean we macroscopic creatures are actually in the minority. Most life on earth is still microbial of course that was the very first life to arise on the earth. And presumably it would be the first life to rise on the planet Mars and from you know what area presumably maybe in some warm area. And you ask the question well is it possible that with the catastrophic climate change that Mars suffered could some of that life have still persisted to this day and you know one of the remarkable things about life is just how a nation it is

how persistent it is it really tries to hang on and I think you know if somehow there is still liquid water on the planet Mars perhaps beneath the surface then it's conceivable that life as you know in microbial form has persisted to this day but of course that's one of the things we want to find out with. With the upcoming missions and other missions in the future to Mars let's talk with another listener. We have someone in champagne. Why number one. Hello I was wondering if you could say something more about. Materials different materials on Mars that are cut because different surface colors. It was wonderful looking at it just at the separation but we could see you know not only the sort of general orange tone but but many areas that were darker and some much lighter than the rest. Would we would we recognise the mineral through caulking uses you know common earth things like the fall tour. Do you have any idea about this.

Yes none of the Martian surface is covered by volcanic rock. The planet has the greatest volcanoes in the solar system and they have largely shut off and are not entirely shut off. But they basically you know in the past covered much of the Martian surface with volcanic rock and you actually hit on the answer there but help much of the Martian surface is the salt and in particular the dark thing the dark regions are basaltic there also looks to be perhaps and acidic type material on the Martian surface as well. But you know to a first approximation you know think of the Martian surface as consisting basically of volcanic rock. We actually have a rock from Mars even though we never had a spacecraft land on Mars and we turn rocks we we have rocks from the planet Mars and they're all volcanic they're all volcanic rocks. So you know when you when you look at the Martian surface you really looking at the work of volcanoes and also when you. Consider the atmosphere which today unfortunately so very thin you know again looking at the products of volcanoes because those gases

who erupted into the atmosphere is ok now. Well maybe I should ask then about the lighter the lighter areas. If you told me something about the darker ones I suppose the other thing that that seemed seemed strange to me is why there should be such. Well let's see maybe it's a matter of looking at them with with only ordinary telescopes but I'm surprised that that Mars has such large patches that seem so uniform. You know I would I would think if you strip the oceans and the atmosphere out of the earth that it would look like a patchwork of you know that you wouldn't see. Large consist of working areas of running. Right right. Yeah one of the surprising discoveries of a spacecraft is that the traditional light in dark areas that you see through the telescope and other observers had for long seen through the telescope actually don't match up terribly well with the different topography of Mars in other words the lighter areas are not

necessarily different elevations than the darker areas. And we actually don't have a terribly. We don't have terribly good information as to what is the substance in in those different areas on Mars. You know just except for the very general statement that appears to be mostly volcanic rock based on the evidence both from you know from orbiting spacecraft and also from the rocks we have from Mars so you know the answer to your question is unfortunately not fully known even even today. All righty. Rebecca Okay her thank you. We are a little bit past XM or little bit better. The midpoint we have about 15 minutes left in this part of focus 580 can cross well as our guest he's an astronomer and writer. If you're interested in learning about Mars you might look for his new book it's titled magnificent Mars it's published by the Free Press and has all of what we know currently about Mars and what it's made of and how it came to be the way it is. And it is just full of really stunning photographs. I think anybody interested in astronomy would find it pretty fascinating. The

questions also welcome 3 3 3 9 4 5 5 toll free 800 to 2 2 9 4 5 min we have another caller here also in Champaign line 1. Hello. Yes this the gravity of Mars sufficient to hold on to an atmosphere if we could somehow go there in mind Atmos the material from the planet and release. You probably have to really think greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide and water vapor more gases that we have on Earth nitrogen oxygen if the gravity for Pearson got hold of him to keep him from going to space. Yes yes the gravity of Mars is less than the Earth's gravity. Thirty eight percent of the Earth's gravity. But that's more than enough to hold onto gases such as you suggest and certainly you know adding more atmosphere is would be a top priority if you wanted to transform transform the planet into a more friendly planet. Adding water vapor. Well it's got plenty of carbon dioxide of it and have more. You add methane add

ozone that oxygen of course for us air breathers. But Mars would have no trouble holding onto those gases. The problem with ancient Mars is that you know the first eight hundred million years of solar system all the planets were being slammed into by these big asteroids and comets and they splattered air into space. But that onslaught is now gone. And it's true that Mars lost the Thames who because it was so small that if you were to add it now in the absence of this onslaught from asteroids and comets it would have no trouble holding onto that air. Thank you. All right thanks for the call. Apparently sometime soon the Bush administration is going to announce a new policy on space exploration. And there are a number of people who are involved in formulating this and some of the stories that I have seen say that the administration is moving towards at least recommending talking about sending humans back to the moon as eventually establishing

some kind of permanent presence on the moon and then talking about going on to Mars. Easy things to say not very easy things to do when you look at the the sheer cost and also the technical difficulty. Difficult enough going to the moon but going to Mars is even more difficult. It's further and the conditions are very harsh. And in a sense some astronomers I think would say if you were going to go to all that trouble to go to Mars you would want to spend a little while there and we wouldn't want to be like some of the early missions on the moon where they hung out for a few hours and then they came home. You're going to go all that way you want to stay there for a while. And again that raises the level of difficulty greater because you're going to have to be able to sustain human beings in what is a very harsh atmosphere and maybe you would want to be there for you know who knows a few days a week as long as you possibly could. How realistic is the idea that we that we would see human

beings on Mars say within the next I don't know 40 50 years maybe. I think it's a possibility. And as you point out it can be very difficult it's going to be very expensive and they're probably going to take a lot of political will I mean you know it's one thing to send an unmanned spacecraft to the planet Mars or to the other planets in the solar system and those unmanned spacecraft that pose a lot at very little cost. But you know a lot of people would like to actually go to Mars then. Unfortunate a very long trip as you point out it's not six months. As opposed to a few days to reach the moon. And so it would be a very expensive trip it would be there would be a lot of challenges. It would be a very dangerous trip too. But of course there are a lot of people who would happily volunteer to go to Mars go on that six month trip explore the planet Mars themselves and then hopefully return. But it would be it would be a very difficult mission and I don't think this is something we're going to see in the next 10 or 20 years. But I think you know 40 50 years that's the time frame is more

realistic but it's still going to be a very difficult thing but you know John F. Kennedy who's the one who put us on the moon said you know we do these things not because they're easy but because they're difficult. So I think that the same logic applies to a Mars mission. What about the shorter scale of things the possibility of going back to the moon and establishing some kind of permanent presence there. And obviously there we have serious technical issues and one of the big things right at the start is that we don't have a launch vehicle anymore. Yeah. This can get us there. That's not of course of the problem. So we would have to you know we reinvigorate that area of the space program. But certainly the good thing about putting a base on the moon is that it would teach us how to live in space on another on the surface of another body. And I would imagine and a lunar colony would probably resemble in many ways an Antarctic colony you know there are scientists who who go to Antarctica which is another very harsh environment. And and you know exploring

tarted and teaches a lot about that area of the world. I would imagine a moon base would be rather similar I should tell you that there are some people who are very opposed to putting people on the moon because they fear it would be a detour to what they see as a much more interesting object namely going to Mars and of course Mars is a more interesting object than the moon and it's got you know it's got water eyes it's got these what looked to be ancient riverbeds it's got a nose. It's a more interesting world than the moon but the counterargument to that is that putting a base on the moon would teach us he just people how to live on the surface of another world. We have someone else here we like to ask questions in champagne or a lime one hello. Possible far here is the Reverend Mark. Yes in the same way that you know humans for a few hours lived on the moon. We sent people to the moon they were able to to live on the moon of

course they had to take space suits because they needed air to breathe. The nice thing about Mars is that it's got more materials that human beings need it does have an atmosphere of a very thin atmosphere. There is water in the form of ice on Mars that probably isn't on the moon though Mark does have the basic materials that we need to live. Unfortunately you would still definitely need a space suit if you were to go to Mars. You could not walk around the Martian surface the way we just walk around the Earth's surface and not need any equipment you would definitely need a space to survive on Mars. I'm sorry. Radium to you. I would think yes they were able to plant crops on them. There you can grow stuff in lunar soil so I would presume you could you grow stuff on in Martian soil and in fact Martian soil is very rich in iron and

magnesium. So I would imagine the food grown on Mars would be very rich in those two nutrients. Yeah I like that bar. Oh there's definitely ice on Mars there's ice there's water ice definitely up the north polar cap probably at the south polar cap and beneath the surface is the high latitudes in the north and the south. So there's definitely high water ice on the planet Mars. So that's one very nice thing about Mars that perhaps not true of the moon is that you know if you go to the moon you have to take the water with you whereas if you go to Mars we land in the right place you've got the water right there you just have to melt it. OK thank you. All right thank you. We need our young astronomers. Let's go on to another caller we have somebody on our toll free line here a line number four. Hello. Yes. Do you remember when they were going live with the response to have been discovered and I had an article that was awful and

it was assumed 10 from ours. Yes yes. And I'm astronomer wrote an article and he said that just the material can be transported from Mars to Earth. So can it be transported from Earth to Mars. Right. He says he says because the Earth is mined at times more massive than Mars the transport from here to there via meteorites occurs about 30 times less efficiently but it can occur. Is that right. They can occur we don't have evidence that it has occurred but it's certainly a possibility. Yes and it's something that we have to worry about if we find signs of past life on Mars or maybe even present life on Mars. Well have to figure out all is that indigenous life. We're going to dump her. That's right. All right you know the other way around maybe we came from Mars and maybe the Martians here are. Thank you. Thanks but the caller makes reference to that this was a big story no I don't remember how many years ago that someone had a piece of rock essentially that was found and believe in

Antarctica that because of its composition was identified as having come from Mars and someone looked at it and saw some features in the rock that they say they postulated where fossilized life forms. And there was a lot of discussion about it and I think what was this ultimately result to most people's satisfaction that in fact these were not fossils of living things that it was just that it was just that a feature in the rock. Well it's still an open question actually I would say that most scientists today as they were in 1906 when the announcement was made are skeptical. The evidence presented is not overwhelmingly strong. I talk about this on page 167 of a magnificent Mars that talk about the fossils in that Martian meteorite we know the rock came from Mars that's not in dispute. And there are certainly some interesting features of that of that object. I think probably the most interesting are what looks to be.

Magnetite crystals in that meteorite that on Earth are known to have formed only by terrestrial bacteria. That's probably that's still to this day the strongest evidence that something pretty unusual is going on in that meteorite. But it's also possible that those magnetite crystals were formed by some non biological process that we human beings haven't figured out yet. So the big question is still open I would say most scientists are skeptical. It certainly it certainly should not be taken as a proof of past life on Mars. But you know I have no doubt that when people actually do go to Mars one of their chief missions is going to be to search for fossils of life on on the red planet. Other callers are next is champagne and wine one the little. Maybe that culture changed their mind about paino will go to line two. Hello hello I was wondering about the Martian seasons and the Martian crater and whether the

Mars was tipped like the earth is that 20 some degrees from the perpendicular. And how the seasons and I kind of thing would be thank you. All right. Yes if you like to see the earth I think you'll like the seasons of Mars because as you know because many people don't know the seasons of the earth are caused by the Earth's axial tilt a lot of people think the heathens because because the Earth gets closer and father from the son that's not true the earth has an axial tilt of twenty three point four degrees and Mars has an X feel tilt very similar of twenty five point two degrees to the seasons of Mars are very similar to you know summer winter fall spring the big difference is that the seasons last about twice as long because it takes Mars about twice as long to go around the sun a year on Mars. The hundred eighty seven days as opposed to 365 days here on Earth. So justly right Martha's season just as the earth the big difference is there about twice as long.

Where else in our solar system are there some other places that astronomers. Space scientists think might be likely places to find living things. Well the most interesting other object besides Mars in that regard is a moon that goes around the planet Jupiter it's a moon called Europa and here we have an object that may not just have a past life but perhaps even present life this this moon is covered with ice in ice water ice and beneath that ice layer which may be many miles that we suspect although we can't prove it yet but we suspect that there's an ocean of liquid water and of course any time you have liquid water you've got the possibility of life there. The moon keeps a warm simply because it gets heated by the tides of Jupiter but Europa is certainly the next interesting place but Mars. And what sort of thinking. Are there and I'm sure that there are people thinking about this designing some sort of exploring space craft to go there and to take a look at

that and and see if there might come up with some data on that particular question. Yeah exploring Europa is going to be a lot harder because that I say are so very sick and so you're talking Miles that we can't even here in earth we can't even drill through I think that many miles they can imagine how much harder it would be to do it on another world. But certainly we would love to put a spacecraft in orbit around you know send a lander to the surface to the point where I study up that object but it's going to be a harder world to explore and also of course farther from the earth. But nonetheless I have no doubt that hopefully in the next 10 years we'll be seeing more images of Iraq. Well I think we're probably about the point we're going to have to finish up for people who are interested in in Mars. Certainly I would suggest you head out to the bookstore and look at this book that we've mentioned. It has great photographs I'm sure you have a good time just paging through it it's titled magnificent Mars it's published by Free Press by our guest can Croswell and

also more generally if you're interested in astronomy you could look for some of his other books. One that would be great if you're just starting out would be his book see the stars your first guide to the night sky and other is entitled magnificent universe. So go out there and take a look at those books. And Ken thank you very much for talking with us to measure and we appreciate it.