last updated and validated May 1, 1999. SHD
To better understand the Martians, and what drove them to attempt the invasion of Earth, it is perhaps useful to know some facts about the conditions that prevail upon their homeworld. There follows a summary of current knowledge about the Red Planet - its geography (or rather, areography), climate and landmarks. We are indebted to Mr. Percival Lowell for much of the information on the climate and features of Mars, and Mr. Jacoby Wace for the information on Martian cities.
"The planet Mars, I scarcely need remind the reader, revolves about the sun at a mean distance of 140,000,000 miles, and the light and heat it receives from the sun is barely half of that received by this world. It must be, if the nebular hypothesis has any truth, older than our world; and long before this earth ceased to be molten, life upon its surface must have begun its course. The fact that it is scarcely one seventh of the volume of the earth must have accelerated its cooling to the temperature at which life could begin. It has air and water and all that is necessary for the support of animated existence."
Astronomers have studied Mars for many years, and over that time a considerable body of information has been collected concerning conditions on the Red Planet. Add to this in recent years the findings of the numerous probes fired from the Great Cannons of Canaveral, Sumatra, Kourou and Kenya, which were relayed by Hertzian wave across the gulf of space, and it is possible to paint a detailed picture of our sister world.
The eccentricity of the orbit of Mars is such that its nearest approach to the Sun is 129,500,000 miles, the mean distance is 141,500,000 miles, and most remote is 154,500,000 miles. The diameter of Mars is about 4215 miles, giving a surface area just over a quarter of that of Earth. The gravitational attraction on the surface of Mars is 38% that of Earth; that is, a man on Mars would only weigh 38% of what he would weigh on Earth.
The Martian sidereal day (the day relative to the stars rather than the Sun) is 24 hours, 37 minutes, 22.7 seconds long, some forty minutes longer than our own sidereal day of 23 hours, 56 minutes, and the planet travels about the sun once every 686.98 terrestrial days.
Mars has two tiny moon, discovered in 1877, and known as Deimos (Dread) and Phobos (Fear). Deimos, at a distance of 14,600 miles from the planet's centre, orbits once every 30 hours and 18 minutes; Phobos, at a distance of 5,800, every 7 hours and 39 minutes. Phobos goes round the planet faster than the planet turns upon itself, and would thus appear to any observers on the planet's surface to break the conformity of stellar motions by rising in the west and setting in the east. Deimos is just as unconventional, as it remains above the horizon for two days at a time. In addition, the proximity of each moon to the planet means that its distance from any point on the surface varies at different times, and with its distance its apparent size changes in a dramatic manner. Deimos has a diameter of about 10 miles, Phobos of about 36 miles. Phobos would thus, at its closest approach to the surface of the planet (i.e. in the zenith), show a disk like the Moon. Otherwise both satellites would appear as stars.
"The secular cooling that must someday overtake our planet has already gone far indeed with our neighbour. Its physical condition is still largely a mystery, but we know now that even in its equatorial region the midday temperature barely approaches that of our coldest winter. Its air is much more attenuated than ours, its oceans have shrunk until they cover but a third of its surface, and as its slow seasons change huge snowcaps gather and melt about either pole and periodically inundate its temperate zones. That last stage of exhaustion, which to us is still incredibly remote, has become a present-day problem for the inhabitants of Mars."
- HG Wells, The War of the Worlds
Conditions on Mars are very close to those theorised by astronomers for many years. It is a dry, cold world, covered for the most part in deserts of red dust and rock, with long-extinct volcanoes pushing their way through the thin atmosphere. There are ice caps at each pole, formed for the most part of water ice, which melt during the Martian summer. What little water there is lies deep beneath the surface or locked at the poles.
At the poles, conditions resemble those of corresponding areas of earth. Mars is tilted on its axis by 25 degrees from its plane of orbit, which means that it experiences seasons much as we do on Earth. During the northern hemisphere's winter, an ice cap accumulates around that pole, and the ice cap of the southern hemisphere melts as it experiences its summer, and vice versa. During the winter, conditions at the pole are severe in the extreme, much colder than the winters of our own poles. In the summer, the ice caps melt to form small polar seas, fringed by transient growths of vegetation vitalised by the release of liquid water that the thaw provides.
The temperate zones, although they would not be recognised as such on our own world, cover the greater part of the Martian surface. Indeed, the regions of Mars that might be called tropical barely reach the temperature of a brisk day in early spring on earth. These areas are generally a couple of degrees above the freezing point of water at noon, with temperatures plummeting well below freezing after dark. The sunlight in the temperate regions is thin and watery, like that on a frosty day.
Perhaps one can get the best idea of conditions across most of Mars by considering a combination of the summits of the higher terrestrial mountain ranges, and the vast sandy wastes of the Sahara - the former for the cold and the relatively attenuated nature of the atmosphere, the latter for the bright sunshine and the dry, dusty desert landscape, as well as the freezing night time conditionss. While the air is bitingly cold in the shade, the sunshine - weaker than on earth - nonetheless relieves this to some degree. It is perfectly possible to become sunburned on Mars, as the thin atmosphere does not filter out as much of the light from the sun as that of earth does.
Occasionally, through some freak disturbance of the Martian weather, enormous dust storms blow out of the deserts, blanketing large areas in an ochre twilight of howling wind and abrasive dust. These dust storms may last weeks at a time.
All things considered it is a testament to Martian science and ingeuity that their species has lasted this long, given the situation on their world.
"When the great continental areas, the reddish-ochre portions of the disk, are attentively examined in sufficiently steady air, their desert-like ground is seen to be traversed by a network of fine, straight, dark lines. The lines start from points on the coast of the blue-green regions, commonly well-marked bays, and proceed directly to what seem centres in the middle of the continent, since most surprisingly they meet there other lines that have come to the same spot with apparently a like determinate intent. And this state of things is not confined to any one part of the planet, but takes place all over the reddish-ochre regions."
- Percival Lowell, MARS
A number of other, less recognised theories were borne out by closer investigation of the Martian globe. In particular the assertions of Signor Schiaparelli and Mr. Lowell regarding a system of canals spanning the face of Mars, distributing precious water across the desert. Lowell first proposed the existence of Martian waterways following his examination of the Martian sphere during the Oppositions of 1894 and 1896 from his observatory at Flagstaff, Arizona. Although initially ridiculed by other astronomers, Lowell and his theories have since been vindicated by the evidence gathered in the years following the Invasion.
The canals of Mars appear through an Earth-based telescope as a network of lines, long, fine and perfectly straight, or curving in a uniform manner along their length. In fact they always trace the most direct route between any two points along their length, being arcs of great circles, spanning the globe. They uniformly stretch from the coasts of the tiny and seasonal polar seas of Mars to the centre of the continents, where they meet other similar canals. These canals are rendered visible to us by a combination of their vast length (many earthly rivers would be lost in their inhumanly straight courses), and the belts of cultivated and irrigated land that line their banks.
The major canals are generally in the region of two miles wide, which is maintained for their entire length. An example of such a canal might be the Titan canal, which stretches north from the Bay of Titans on the South Polar Sea for over 2,300 miles. Smaller canals are generally no more than a mile across. From each canal runs a network of small channels which irrigate the land for up to thirty miles on either side of the canal. The depth of these canals is unknown, but the Martians' Fighting Machines have never been known to wade across them, so it is reasonable to suppose that they are at least one hundred feet in depth, perhaps more.
"Avast range of buildings spread below him; [...] There were also trees curious in shape, and in colouring, a deep mossy green and an exquisite grey, beside a wide and shining canal. [...]The long facade of the great building , whose roof he had looked down upon before, was now receding in perspective. [...]In front of the facade was a terrace of massive proportions and extraordinary length, and down the middle of the terrace, at certain intervals, stood huge but very graceful masts, bearing small shiny objects which reflected the setting sun. [...]The terrace overhung a thicket of the most luxuriant and graceful vegetation, and beyond this was a wide grassy lawn on which certain broad creatures, in form like beetles but enormously larger, reposed. Beyond this again was a richly decorated causeway of pinkish stone; and beyond that, and lined with dense redweeds, and passing up the valley exactly parallel with the distant cliffs, was a broad and mirror-like expanse of water. The air seemed full of squadrons of great birds, manoeuvring in stately curves; and across the river was a multitude of splendid buildings, richly coloured and glittering with metallic tracery and facets, among a forest of moss-like and lichenous trees."
- H G Wells, The Crystal Egg
The cities of Mars are almost exclusively constructed along the banks and at the intersections of the Great Canals, the lifelines of Mars, and are shown up by the cultivated land around them that supports their populations of Old Martians.
These cities by far outclass the metropolises of earth for grace and aesthetic achievement. Paris, London and Florence pale into obscurity against the glittering towers of Mars, the graceful spires which, in the gentle gravity of Mars, rise soaringly into the Martian sky. The cities are adorned with splendid gardens, all the more of a luxury considering the arid conditions that prevail across much of Mars.
While the residences of the Martians are palatial in their grandeur, the Old Martians live in squalor, in dismal ghettoes on the outskirts of the cities, furthest from the canals. Even so, their homes are beautifully constructed, especially in comparison with the run-down tenements that form terrestrial slums even today.
Sadly, many of these great cities lie in ruins, destroyed by the millennia of war that have wracked the Red Planet. Their towers lie shattered, the glittering buildings smashed into rubble. What beauty might still exist without the shadow of War that falls across the red plains of Mars?
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last updated and validated
May 1, 1999. SHD