Secret of The Red Planet

by Chris Hawley

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  HIGH VOLCANOS AND DEEP CANYONS

  A large bubble was parked by the cliff face as Michu and I passed through the entrance way into the soft grey light of early morning, each in our own personal bubble. The sun had still not risen above the horizon. High above us in the sky, one of the two Martian moons reflected the sun’s rays.

  ‘That’s Phobos,’ Michu explained. ‘It is the larger of our two satellites but very small compared to your moon. It is only about nine thousand kilometres away.’

  I could just make out that it was not round like our own moon.

  ‘It is elongated,’ Michu continued. Actually it was not formed at the same time as Mars, like your moon was. It is a captured asteroid.’

  ‘How do you mean ‘captured’, Michu?’

  ‘It was one of the larger bodies in the asteroid belt, between here and Jupiter. It had an elliptical orbit round the sun, which sometimes brought it close to Mars. On one of its trips round the sun it came too near Mars and the gravity would not let it escape. Fortunately it managed to settle down into a stable orbit.’

  ‘Why was it fortunate?’ I was fascinated by this information.

  ‘It could have crashed into the surface of Mars and, you know, an asteroid of fourteen kilometres long can make a very big hole in the planet, with devastating consequences.’

  ‘Amazing!’ I said. ‘What would happen?’

  ‘Imagine the dust for one thing, and the earthquakes and volcanoes.’

  ‘Yes. It happened once on Earth, I remember reading. An enormous meteorite hit the Earth and wiped out the dinosaurs.’

  ‘And most of the other species living on your planet at the time,’ said Michu. ‘The thing was over ten kilometres across. The sun was not seen for years. That was sixty-five million Earth years ago. And there have been many others.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Yes. Luckily, large asteroids are less common in these times, but millions of years ago both Mars and Earth suffered many major collisions. But it is still possible, even now.’

  I shuddered to think of a huge lump of rock hitting my home town.

  ‘Tell me more.’ I was impressed at her knowledge of our Earth’s history.

  ‘Another time, Bill, we have a lot to see today.

  I looked up again at Phobos and noticed that it had already moved Eastward in the direction of the sunrise. By the end of the day it would already be back in the sky above us.

  Michu and I entered the large bubble and took our seats on cushions. I noticed there were several other cushions. Just then five other Martians came in from behind and, after greeting us, sat on the vacant cushions. I was told they were visitors from another clan living East of Cydonia, who were on a tour of our region. They were an assortment of types, brown or fair, like the Similaria clan, but they wore a greenish tunic. Like all Martians I had seen, they were small and wore no shoes.

  We sat for some moments and I guessed they were praying silently to themselves. I did the same. Then suddenly the bubble began to move, slowly at first. It rose some few metres above the ground and then before I knew it, we were climbing swiftly into the air. In no time the ground was far below and we were moving forward. The red desert stretched out all around. A large dry river bed passed below us as we sped on. The sun was shining over to our left. Before long, the landscape grew more rugged. Long shadows marked the mountains. Then, as we rose still higher, I could begin to see the Valles Marineris stretching from far in the West for what looked like hundreds of kilometres towards the East. I wonder what could have caused such an enormous gash in the Martian crust.

  ‘Asteroids, Bill,’ was Michu’s reply to my thought.

  ‘Phew!’ I whistled. ‘That was a mighty big one to cause that!’

  ‘If only you knew how big.’

  ‘How big was it then?’

  ‘Well, there were three big ones actually, remains of a gigantic comet. One was more than ninety kilometres across. The smallest was about thirty kilometres, but still a monster.’

  ‘And one of them tore a chasm that big?’ I was utterly fascinated.

  ‘Not exactly ‘tore’ but the impact of the biggest asteroid way over to the South East caused Mars to literally burst its seem, and there, you see one of the results in that chasm.’

  ‘Incredible!’ I cried. Heads of the other passengers turned to look at me.

  ‘Yes, you may say incredible.’ Michu shook her head and continued. ‘And that is not all that happened. The force of the asteroid ploughing its way deep into the centre of Mars, followed by two more, blew away millions of square kilometres of the crust of the northern hemisphere of Mars. It was literally blown away into space. That gigantic explosion also caused four enormous volcanoes to erupt. We shall see them later.’

  ‘Were there any Martians living at that time?’ I asked.

  ‘No. That was many hundreds of thousands of years ago. But there were creatures living on Mars then.’

  ‘What kind of creatures?’

  ‘Mostly minute amphibians and tiny fish-like creatures in the oceans.’

  ‘I knew there was water on Mars, but oceans as well!’

  ‘Oh, yes. Those must have been wonderful days on Mars, ‘said Michu wistfully.’

  ‘So what happened to the living things?’ I asked.

  ‘Nothing could survive such a calamity, Bill. All life was wiped out. The energy created by the combined impact of those asteroids caused the seas to evaporate and most of the atmosphere drifted off into space. Mars, over a period of only a few years, became uninhabitable. Only the spirit beings remained.’

  I added, ‘because they have no body, they can’t be harmed.’

  ‘Correct.’

  ‘But you can survive,’ I put in, hopefully.

  ‘We were prepared. The life at that time did not have the intelligence.’

  My mind went back to a previous conversation and I wondered again where these Martians, that looked so much like us, came from. Michu gave me a look, as much as to say, ‘I know what you’re thinking. Forget it.’

  I looked down at the canyon. We seemed to be going down. After a pause, Michu continued.

  ‘There were other effects of those mighty impacts, too. For a start, Mars is much smaller than the Earth and its rate of spin should be much quicker, but it is not. The impact had the effect of eventually slowing down the rate at which Mars turns on its axis.’

  ‘Now twenty-four and a half Earth hours.’ I was pleased to show of my newly acquired knowledge.

  ‘Exactly! And you know that Mars has an unusually elliptical orbit, which takes it quite near to the Earth every so many years. At the moment it is relatively far from you but sometimes it is much brighter in your night sky. Of course Earth will also look correspondingly bigger to us on Mars.’

  ‘I know. Mars came close to us just four years ago. It was bright red.’

  Michu went on, ‘and over long periods of time the north-south tilt fluctuates.’

  I interrupted. ‘I’m lost, Michu. Can you explain what you mean?’

  She laughed and her dark eyes shone. ‘You know, of course that the Earth tilts back and forth on its axis once every time it goes round the sun.’

  ‘That is what causes our seasons,’ I said.

  ‘The Earth tilts to the South and you enjoy your summer in England.’

  ‘When we get a summer at all,’ I quipped.

  ‘Well, Mars has seasons in much the same way because Mars also tilts, strange as you may think, almost exactly the same amount as the Earth. The difference is that the degree of tilt varies over long periods of time and then the seasons also change.’

  ‘Mars and the Earth are so alike in many ways though,’ I said.

  ‘Seasons on Mars are much longer than yours. But the polar ice caps do grow and recede as yours do, in time with the tilting.’

  ‘What are the ice caps made of, Michu?’

  ‘The North polar cap is made of frozen carbon dioxide and wate
r ice. The South Pole has only frozen carbon dioxide. The water ice never melts because it is too cold, and therefore it has not followed all the other water into space.’

  ‘But why is it that water cannot exist on the surface of Mars?’ I wanted to know.

  ‘The ground pressure is too low, less than ten millibars, compared to one thousand on Earth. But we are lucky to have as much water as we want underground.’

  Michu gave me one of her charming smiles. Martians, I knew, would never forget the gift of water, the sustainer of life. How many people on Earth really appreciate that wonderful gift?

  I had been right, the bubble was descending and soon we were below the rim of the canyon, which stretched as far as I could see in each direction. The walls soared up on each side. At the bottom, far below, there were signs that a torrent of water once swept along its length and the sides were heavily eroded by steep streams.

  A sudden thought struck me. I was surprised that I it had not occurred to me before. Who was in control of this bubble?

  Michu laughed. ‘Who is flying this thing? Is that what you are wondering?’

  ‘Mmm,’ I nodded, a little crossly.

  ‘Remote control.’

  ‘Remote control?’

  ‘Yes, from Similaria. Our entire trip is programmed in advance.’

  ‘Like my rescue in the depths of space, I suppose,’ I volunteered.

  ‘Like your rescue, in the nick of time,’ laughed Michu.

  ‘Alright, you win.’ I had to admit I was out of my depth.

  The bubble continued along the canyon, controlled by someone in Similaria.

  ‘How deep is this canyon?’ I asked.

  ‘Seven kilometres, several times deeper than your Grand Canyon.’

  ‘And the Americans think everything over there is the biggest.’ I could not resist the temptation to poke a little fun at our brothers from across the Atlantic.

  ‘I might add that their foreign policy of late has produced some of the very biggest blunders of all time,’ said Michu. ‘And they are the biggest producers of greenhouse gases.’

  I had to agree with her on that one.

  After what seemed like hours we reached the end of the Western end of the Valles Marineris and climbed out onto level ground. The bubble increased speed. After some time I noticed ahead of us what looked like three big boils in a line.

  ‘Those are the Tharsis Montes, gigantic volcanoes, created at the same time as the Valles Marineris. Aren’t they impressive?’

  ‘Fantastic!’ I agreed.

  ‘But you wait!’ said Michu.

  ‘What must I wait for?’

  ‘The biggest volcano of all, Olympus Mons!’ she announced dramatically.

  It was not long before it appeared over the horizon. It was majestic, to be sure.

  ‘Twenty-five kilometres tall, the highest volcano in the solar system,’ said Michu. ‘And over seven hundred kilometres across.’

  ‘Wow! One of the seven wonders of the solar system,’ I said.

  We passed directly over the crater at a height of only about five thousand metres.

  ‘The caldera is over sixty kilometres wide,’ Michu told me.

  ‘The crater? And is it active?’

  ‘Not any more, Bill. It burst out as a result of the huge asteroids we talked about earlier. Imagine the heat! The whole of Mars must have rocked.’

  I tried to imagine what it must have been like to be a poor creature alive at the time of the disaster.

  ‘And shall I tell you something, Bill? If the asteroids had been much bigger, Mars would not exist today.’

  ‘You mean it would have been blown to bits?’ I cried.

  ‘You’ve got it!’ No Mars! Just thousands of bits going round the sun in a belt between Venus and Jupiter.’

  ‘You mean Earth and Jupiter, surely.’

  ‘No, I mean Venus and Jupiter, Bill.’

  My mind was racing. What does she mean? Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars and Jupiter in that order. Then I knew her meaning. Earth would also not exist today.

  ‘You’ve got it Bill. The chances are that some of that material that once made up the planet Mars, going around in all sorts of peculiar orbits, would at some point collide with the Earth. Maybe the Earth would have survived, but barren like Mars is today, with no life at all. It is more likely that an asteroid, many hundreds of kilometres wide, would have blown the Earth to bits. But of course it was not meant to be.’

  I was quiet for the rest of the way back to Similaria.