While at Michelle’s parents’ house I found a very interesting book.
The text I’m about to excerpt comes from “Planets – Other Worlds of Our Solar System” by Otto Binder, Golden Press, New York (1959).
Clouds have often been observed, suggesting that Mars has either dust or water vapor. The caps at the North and South Poles reflect light as the Earth’s icecaps do; so scientists assume that Mars’ atmosphere may contain water vapor. However, the Martian ice or snow is probably just a few inches thick, unlike our giant icecaps. Still, each spring the Martian polar caps shrink, possibly forming water vapor. What appear to be clouds then seem to drift around the planet.
Besides this, each summer, large brown areas on Mars turn a definite greenish color that spreads over more and more of the planet. Many astronomers are convinced that those green patches are Martian vegetation that thrives every summer, then wilts the next winter, just as plants do here on earth.
Some observers, however, attribute the color changes to chemical processes taking place in the Martian soil when moisture arrives. They maintain that life cannot exist on the Red Planet because only small traces of oxygen and carbon dioxide – gases necessary to all life on Earth – have been found in the Martian air, which appears to be composed mainly of nitrogen and argon gases.
However, evidence seems to point toward Mars being a planet with life, even if the green growths are nothing more than primitive plants, such as lichens, algae, moss, and fungi.
Today, after we’ve put several landers on Mars, we have discovered first hand that any life that does exist, or did in the past, is likely to be microscopic and certainly not something that we’d be able to observe directly from Earth. Further, if it is or was there, it’s hiding pretty well from our instruments.
It makes me wonder how much current conjecture by astronomers, physicists, and others is on the right track and how much is as far out as the ideas expressed in the book.
For the latest on the Mars mission, I recommend checking out both the NASA Mars Exploration Program site and Space.com online.