Girl In The Basement "Elizabeth Fritzl"

Life on Mars

Once humans had telescopes strong enough to study Mars in detail, we asked ourselves two questions. How do we make contact?

The question echoed through the ages Is there life on Mars?

The 'Red Planet was first tracked in the sky thousands of years ago and is now being monitored by a cosmic helicopter, yet it has remained elusive for us. But today's earthlings may remain the most curious about the possibility of alien life on Mars -- and how humans can one day settle there. From theories about Mars channels to space radio messages, here's how humans thought about life on Mars over time - and how some even tried to reach their brothers on Mars.

Alien channels and early theories about life on Mars

Mars often appears in ancient texts as a 'fire star' or represents the God of War. In the 17th century, early telescopes allowed scientists to get a glimpse of the red planet. But it took more powerful telescopes for astronomers to take a closer look -- and to take off the theories of life on Mars. In 1877, Italian astronomer Giovanni Schiaparelli observed cross-lines covering the Red Planet. Call the Canale lines, which mean 'channels'. Schiaparelli was not convinced that this was the product of space life. But others certainly were. As the word spread, Canale was translated as 'channels'. And if there are channels -- doesn't that indicate the presence of aliens you're digging too? Many have come to believe that the lines across Mars were a wonderful system of waterways on the planet.

Such a system might suggest that Not only were Mars present, they were also great engineers. On Earth, humans took 10 years to finish the Suez Canal in 1869. Thus, Mars' achievements seemed much higher than those of humans. Percival Lowell certainly thought so. In 1894, the emerging astronomer began to expand the concept of Mars channels. Lowell used his family's textile wealth to open the Lowell Observatory in Flagstaff, Arizona. He meticulously mapped what he observed on Mars, wrote several books, and lectured frequently about his shocking theory of Mars - and they were trying to irrigate their dying planet.

Lowell provided logical explanations for how and why life should exist on the planet, using life on Earth to illustrate his argument when it was conclusively proven that there could be no life on the seabed, deep-sea bulldozers were invented, and once they were even let down, ha! They came teeming with life. Fish, crustaceans, mollusks, and skin thorns - in short, from all the usual surface fish species from protoplasmic particles to marine monsters - are found to live deep. What it couldn't be, it was just. Mapping the Red Planet was one thing. But scientists will soon try to make contact with any life that may exist on Mars.

Access to the Red Planet 

In 1899, Lowell's theory of life on Mars received a boost from prominent scientist Nikola Tesla. Tesla, who was a successful electrical engineer, claimed to have discovered an 'inexplicable faint' signal originating from Mars. While experimenting with his amplifier transmitter at a high altitude from Pike Peak in Colorado Springs, Tesla allegedly received a 'message from another world, unknown and distant'. What did the letter say? According to Tesla, he simply read 'one-two - three'. A few years later, in a February 1901 interview with Collier's Weekly, the inventor claimed he could connect to Mars by sending wireless messages accurately to any point on the Red Planet.

That was exactly the statement - successful radio messages would not be sent to the ground until December of that year. Tesla did not know what aliens could look like, but he was convinced that it was possible for them to adapt to the harsh conditions of Mars. Like Lowell, I think it's possible that in a frozen planet like our moon is supposed to be, intelligent organisms may still inhabit its interior, if not on its surface. For many, it seemed logical that if humans could receive messages from Mars, they could probably send them as well.

In 1909, several attempts were made to connect to life on Mars. Harvard Professor William Henry Pickering suggested sending light signals to the planet through a series of reflections created by a huge network of 50 giant mirrors. Flashes of light will last for several years, allowing time for Mars to develop the necessary means of response. Pickering said 'In the hope of restoring such signals, we must assume, of course, that Mars, if any, have telescopes, eyes, etc., just as humans do on this Earth.

But Pickering's plan cost $10 million and no one seems to want to fund it. Afterward, a Johns Hopkins University professor named Robert Wood suggested covering Nevada's white alkaline plains with enormous black spots made of four square miles of cloth, instead. Wood said 'it would be easy' to wink 'black spot signals as with an equal size mirror, perhaps easier'. But his plan, like Pickering's, was thwarted by a lack of funding. Another professor, David Todd of Amherst, believes that by taking a hot air balloon at an altitude of 50,000 feet, he can receive any messages from Mars.

Todd said in May of that year, months before his proposal in September that 'if life already exists on Mars, they've been trying for years to get into a conversation with us, and they might wonder how stupid things we don't respond to'. A short trip. But Todd's test flight reached an altitude of only 5,000 feet. Todd's support from the Ministry of War ended abruptly shortly afterward leaving the world without the means to complete his plans on the ground.

Strange proposals for a lawyer who loves Mars

The use of radios, mirrors, hot air balloons, and even giant black dots to communicate with any potential life on Mars was at least supported by science. But on October 27, 1926, a London-based lawyer tried to send a telegram directly to Mars, 35 million miles away, where his Martian girlfriend was waiting for him. Dr. Hugh Mansfield Robinson was confident of receiving his letter. Mars was at its closest point from Earth in orbit for two years. In addition, Robinson claimed he was talking remotely with a six-foot-tall Martian woman named Omaroro.

According to Robinson, Omaroro and her Fellow Martians lived somewhat like earthlings, driving and smoking pipes. But he claimed they also set off across the sky in airships and ate fruit from electrified trees.

For several months before sending him, Robinson worked with the Central Telegraph Office in London to send a material message to his Martian girlfriend. Incredibly, the Telegraph office agreed to launch a telegram from Rugby Tower, the world's most powerful wireless station at the time, for a standard long-distance rate of 18 pence per word, or about 35 cents. Although telegraph writers heard no response, Robinson claimed to have heard remotely from Omaroro, who told him that Mars' were sitting for hours to receive signals. They laugh at our scientists because they themselves got rid of the problems of the atmosphere completely, yet we didn't.'

Although Robinson was unlucky, as I noted in my book, the great book of Mars from ancient Egypt to Mars, diving deep into space in our obsession with the Red Planet, he was not alone in his obsession with the red planet. great endeavors. The ideas of former scientists may seem elusive, but their curiosity and tireless endeavors inspired the generations that followed. By 1976, NASA had moved the search for life on Mars to the actual surface Mars via two Viking landing vehicles. One of the experiments of the metabolic response of the landing compound revealed positive results, which meant that a species of organism consumed a nutrient placed in the soil sample, suggesting that there may be life on the red planet. However, these results remain controversial to this day.

Subsequent explorations by the rovers provided evidence that Mars might once have been hospitable to life. For example, curiosity, which landed in 2012, explored a mountain in the center of Gale Crater on the red planet called Mount Sharp. The 16,000-foot height was built from sedimentary layered rocks, made of different metals and created over time by wind and water, two elements that require an atmosphere for existence. Scientists believe that if there is an atmosphere, microbes may have existed billions of years ago while these layers were forming and the planet may have been habitable for about a million years. Recently, NASA's Perseverance roving vehicle was launched on July 30, 2020, and the landing was confirmed on February 18, 2021. 

Sources : gov.uk smithsonianmag