Out of this World? The View of Mars
Ground control to Major Tom! It's time to make a tinfoil costume, invite star-struck friends round and sing, "Is there life on Mars?" Over the next few weeks, if you've a telescope, you might even be able to see for yourself.
The Red Planet, an object of human fascination for millennia, is closer to Earth than it's been since Neanderthal Man and Woman saw it shining bright after a night's clubbing 60,000 years ago. It's truly cosmic.
It's also deeply humbling. Since planting both feet on planet Earth, we've craned our necks and puzzled over this small, reddish dot that weaves its nightly magic through the zodiac.
The Ancient Egyptians, originally enough (for then, it was original), called it the 'Red One'. The Babylonians preferred 'Star of Death', while the Greeks called it the 'Fiery One'. It was the Romans, of course, who opted for 'Mars' after their own god of war. The planet remains charged with astrological significance, despite the far-sighted efforts of science to explain its heavenly presence more rationally.
Mars shimmers patiently as we continue to right the story of our place in the greater scheme of things. Star thinkers like Ptolemy, Copernicus, Kepler, Galileo and Herschel have all stared into space and drawn momentous conclusions. (Such lineage reminds us that humans may not always be right about our latest theories.)
Percival Lowell speculated romantically about how a dying civilisation had channelled water across the Martian deserts to try to save itself. H G Welles' War of the Worlds fed the fascination, and later that year, Orson Welles turned his story into a radio broadcast which convinced America that the little green men were coming to get them.
As an army of probes now flies in the opposite direction to search for signs of life out there, the heavens continue to declare the glory of God. They did so long before we wondered at their celestial message. And they stretch out beyond our finite imaginations deep into the future.
Amazingly, we are witness to this divine, cosmic plan we call the universe unfolding, however much (or little) it revolves around us. And amid the vastness of space, the heavens are also witness to an amazing story about their Creator... who once, in a lonely corner of a distant galaxy, breathed life into earth, and Earth into life.
Brian Draper
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