Word: life
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...idea that there might be intelligent life on Mars took root in the 17th century, after Johannes Kepler developed his theory of planetary motion, which helped rebut the old Ptolemaic idea of an earth-centered system of celestial bodies. Kepler's ideas supported the Copernican theory that the sun is the true center of man's universe. Its implications were profound. If the earth is only one of several planets orbiting the sun, could it be the only one to contain life? Newton, Huygens and Voltaire all speculated on the existence of intelligent life elsewhere in the solar...
...scientific techniques improved, astronomers saw enough to become increasingly convinced that most planets were inhospitable to life. Yet Mars continued to provoke serious speculation, largely because it showed so many characteristics that seemed fascinatingly similar to those of earth. The red planet turned out to have an atmosphere, albeit an extremely thin one. The tilt of its axis (about 24°) is approximately the same as the earth's, thus creating seasonal changes. Its huge white polar caps suggest the presence of ice, and therefore water-a prerequisite for life as human beings know it. It also has large...
...tiny moons, Phobos and Deimos (Fear and Terror, named after the two attendants of the ancient god of war), might be artificial satellites sent into orbit by Martians. But they would have to be unlike any terrestrial creatures. More than ever, Mars seems hostile to most earthly forms of life. Its surface appears exceptionally dry; its atmosphere seems to be composed largely of carbon dioxide with only a trace of water vapor...
...simulated tests on earth, however, such lowly forms of life as bacteria have survived in a Marslike environment. Moreover, some biologists theorize, life could have evolved on Mars by entirely unfamiliar biological processes. That does not mean that scientists expect to find strange, advanced beings on Mars. But they do not preclude the possibility of primitive life unlike anything ever seen on earth...
Like any man beginning a new life, Author Anatoly Kuznetsov last week sought to explain why he ended the old one. Denouncing his earlier published works as hopelessly corrupted by the Soviet system, he even took a new name: A. Anatol. TIME here presents, in documents made available to its editors, Kuznetsov's explanation of why he fled to the West and three letters that he sent to the Soviet Union after his defection...