A Challenge to Mars: ♂

It was Mr. Giovanni Schiaparelli who set fire to the imagination of people about the Red Planet Mars. He was electrified by what he thought as canals by trusting eye-sight and telescope; he kicked up a sand storm here on earth.

Mr. Mars had an ace up his sleeve. For a long time he was yearning to get closer to Miss. Earth, his nearest neighbour. All he was interested was to develop a platonic relationship.

To that end he decided to play upon the prying eyes of the astronomer – he let him to wrongly conclude, an optical illusion, as canal system and wilfully hid his stormy side from the astronomer’s field of vision. He did not want the astronomer to scare Miss. Earth.

From that moment on, for a considerable period of time, people on Earth went in to tizzy, imagining that canal like structures definitely meant flowing water and irrigated fields. The notion of a Martian civilization came to stay - UFOs helped to paint the Martians as a well-advanced and intelligent community. Sci-Fi spin doctors helped with scripts adaptable for a Hollywood, big ticket animation movies.

Scientific investigations – earth based observations, flyby space craft, Lander missions (Viking, Mariner) gathered Mar’s bio-data from all possible angles & distances. Later on, cocooned rovers (Spirit, Opportunity & Curiosity) landed on your soil and emerged like chicks from shells, to peer at the scenery.

Getting down to business, they roamed, dug and analysed to stream a wealth of electronic data, spanning the chasm of about 100 million kilometres. Mr. Mars, you mutely stood exposed – on your platonic nonsense. Miss Earth had ideas of her own!

She did not mind spending billions of dollars to get gigabytes on your extinct volcanoes, plains, valleys, dried water courses, carbon-di-oxide rich, oxygen starved atmosphere and radiation hazards. You failed to grasp the significance – she was eyeing on your real estate and minerals.

Before all these could happen, Mr. Mars had managed a spot in Myths and Astrology. Myths depicted him as an aggressive planet and Astrology as an inimical influence in affairs of matrimony.

Retracing his orbital positions, during the wars waged by Greek, Roman, Mongol empires and in later centuries at the times of WW1, WW2 and other local aggressions - might yield proof, of involvement of Mr. Mars or otherwise.

A similar exercise might be carried out to compile data on matrimonial discords & divorces to confirm, whether Mr. Mars was interfering in the marital bliss of Earthling.

At the end it might turn out to be apparent that mere emotional linking had caused all these unsolicited attention on Mr. Mars and painted him RED. Miss Earth and the majority of her children have begun to see red every where.

Mr. Mars, take heart. The modern scientific community, which does not go by colour alone, is out to rescue you from all these ill attributes. They have painstakingly gathered evidence to point out close similarities - your polar axial tilt is 24ºand Earth’s is 23.4º.

Your day is  24h 37m long and Earth is not far behind at 23 h 56m; you have the largest volcano, Olympus Mon ( see the  help coming over) – 600 km wide & 25 km high – none to  rival in the Solar system!

The highest Himalayan peak is a poor second, that too at a distance, standing humbled at 8800 and meters. How long the second place will be held might be agitating in the snow caps of Himalayas!

Your canyon system, Valles marineris, is 4000 km long and with an average depth of 6 km.  Here you get only a second place , depth wise – The mariana trench  in the pacific ocean is about 11 Km deep. Miss Earth has no competition to boast, on the length front!

Mr. Mars, you have frozen ice caps at N and S poles – carbon-di-oxide, ice water. Earth can only boast of frozen ice.

You have preserved your stock of Iron and we are depleting our stock fast. You see now the ‘you win some and loose some’ situation for both of us are in!

The lure of wealth, lying in wait, has hit the nerve buttons here on Earth. Mr. Mars you must have spent some time in studying our ‘ardh sastra’ for a primer on how to deal with kingdoms and rulers.

Like a humble peasant, you allowed the space giants to send in spacecrafts flying-by and snoop. You remained a mute spectator, blinded by platonic overtones, when Landers touched down. They ferreted out some more of your secrets. Slowly, you were becoming an open book.

Without realizing what was happening, you, like a simpleton, let mini rovers (Spirit & Opportunity) and car sized Curiosity to roam around probing & poking. You, Mr. Mars,, so enchanted  by the charm of Miss Earth - did not bother  to have a  immigration control & passport, visa regime in place to check alien crafts landing at will. Don’t you try to sneak in like this and it will be a bloody murder in our terms.

Beware of the Blue planet and Earthmen. After making the Earth Red, they will come, to Mars. All these scientific missions are with an ulterior motive – the human race wants another earth-like planet, to colonize and flourish for over hundreds of years.

Your loud question is – what happens afterwards? Another nearby planet will get the honor of being colonized, leaving you bleeding red.

Mr. Mars, you are not living up to your reputation of – an aggressor. However hard you tried and we, the scientific community tried, the stigma stuck.

Now, you don’t curse Mr. Giovanni Schiaparelli for having set his eyes upon first and then introducing you to us.

We mean business. All those freebie ads you got in our media are being cashed in now. The writing is on the wall. If you don’t co-operate with us, we will de-orbit –Phobos & Diemos, and make them to keep company with our Moon as a starter.

Our tycoons are waiting for a bright guy to come up with a patented process to convert the red dust to gold. May be a biologist here on Earth is already ready with a bacteria that thrives on red dust- a bacterial colony is all we want to establish first and then make Mars our holiday resort.
The competition is hotting up with India also sending a probe to say hello to you.

We, the Earthling do believe in preparing the ground well in advance. We have plans to speed up your axial rotation to bring the length of Martian day   on par with ours. In the bargain you will make a little profit on your gravitational account.

We will let loose sub-zero thriving bacterium at the Poles. They will happily consume carbon dioxide and release oxygen..Plants from our Arctic tundra and Antarctica will sprout and aid releasing more oxygen and help in green cover.

We will send you a bucket of water – drink it to swallow your indignation.

Cheer up Mr. Mars- after all we are close neighbors in the solar system, is it not?