Word: martian
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...Power & Peace. How could you explain to a Martian (or to an American or a Frenchman) that Stalin's statement was no more a gesture for peace than Adolf Hitler's promises, repeated after each new conquest, that henceforth he would behave? Of some 20 major agreements concluded between Soviet Russia and the U.S., Moscow has broken nearly all (except the military wartime agreements), from the settlement establishing diplomatic relations (wherein Moscow promised to stop supporting U.S. Communism) down to the Potsdam pact (wherein Moscow promised to treat Germany as an economic unit...
...this might suggest the existence of life. But astronomers have had no evidence that the Martian atmosphere contains the gases (carbon dioxide, nitrogen and oxygen) which are necessary for life as we know it. The necessary water might be lacking too. The "icecaps" might not be frozen water but "dry ice": solid carbon dioxide...
Water & Greenery. Last week, Kuiper focused his spectrometer on the gleaming icecap, dwindling fast in the Martian May. It turned out to be "water in the solid state" (ice, snow or hoarfrost). If it had been solid carbon dioxide (dry ice), it would have shown an entirely different spectrum...
Next, Kuiper examined the greenish areas. Their spectra indicated that they could not be vegetation like trees or grass. But they might be lowly lichens like those that grow on the dry rocks near McDonald Observatory. Lichens need no water in liquid form. Martian lichenlike plants might get enough water out of vapor from the icecaps, which evaporate without melting...
Canals & Superscientists? That was about as far as Dr. Kuiper went. He did not speculate about a race of lichen eaters. He took no direct photographs, and did not see the famous Martian "canals" that astronomers (and Sunday supplement readers) argue about. The canals may get their test in a couple of years when Mars swings around again, and the 200-inch telescope on Palomar Mountain is ready to take its picture...