Mars, God of Cloud | Sunday, November 06, 2005 |
From H.G.Wells' War of the Worlds.
No one would have believed in the last years of the nineteenth century that this world was being watched keenly and closely by intelligences greater than man's and yet as mortal as his own; that as men busied themselves about their various concerns they were scrutinised and studied, perhaps almost as narrowly as a man with a microscope might scrutinise the transient creatures that swarm and multiply in a drop of water. With infinite complacency men went to and fro over this globe about their little affairs, serene in their assurance of their empire over matter.
It is curious to recall some of the mental habits of those departed days. At most terrestrial men fancied there might be other men upon Mars, perhaps inferior to themselves and ready to welcome a missionary enterprise.
Yet across the gulf of space, minds that are to our minds as ours are to those of the beasts that perish, intellects vast and cool and unsympathetic, regarded this earth with envious eyes, and slowly and surely drew their plans against us. And early in the twentieth century came the great disillusionment.
No one would have believed in the last years of the nineteenth century that this world was being watched keenly and closely by intelligences greater than man's and yet as mortal as his own; that as men busied themselves about their various concerns they were scrutinised and studied, perhaps almost as narrowly as a man with a microscope might scrutinise the transient creatures that swarm and multiply in a drop of water. With infinite complacency men went to and fro over this globe about their little affairs, serene in their assurance of their empire over matter. It is curious to recall some of the mental habits of those departed days. At most terrestrial men fancied there might be other men upon Mars, perhaps inferior to themselves and ready to welcome a missionary enterprise.
Yet across the gulf of space, minds that are to our minds as ours are to those of the beasts that perish, intellects vast and cool and unsympathetic, regarded this earth with envious eyes, and slowly and surely drew their plans against us. And early in the twentieth century came the great disillusionment.
This year, this week in fact, sees the orbits of Earth and Mars converge in such away as to be at their closest points to each other until 2017 (not apparently., as close as in 2003, but I didn't know about the event then, so what can you do?)
Our two planets hurtle towards each other at 10 km/s (or a more understandable, but still incomprehensible 22,000 mph) and at it's closest point we'll be a mere 64.9m/km from the Red Planet, home to martians, War Gods and presumably, chocolate bars.
As it turned out, the God of War had been beaten by two falls and a submission by the God of Cloud (perhaps he's been stuffing his face with the chocolate?) as after a gloriously blue-sky'd day the clounds gathered and the rain started.
Gillian was fortunate enough to catch a glimpse of Mars through a small telescope outside of the Sydney Observatory where we'd gone to try and view the event, but the larger fixed devices installed in the typical astronomers dome were sadly out of luck.
I had to make to with a tiny pin prick of light that I'm reliably informed was Mars, but could just have easily have been a distant aircraft.
Interesting stuff though. Perhaps my luck will be better in 2018 which is the next time celestial conditions, if not climatic ones will be as favourable as this year though we don't get as close as we did in 2003 again until 2287.
While hunting around for stuff to pad this out with, I came across this site which is an attempt to collate the covers of every published edition of War of the Worlds and this sculpture in Woking comissioned for the centenury of the book. Both pretty cool.
Our two planets hurtle towards each other at 10 km/s (or a more understandable, but still incomprehensible 22,000 mph) and at it's closest point we'll be a mere 64.9m/km from the Red Planet, home to martians, War Gods and presumably, chocolate bars.
As it turned out, the God of War had been beaten by two falls and a submission by the God of Cloud (perhaps he's been stuffing his face with the chocolate?) as after a gloriously blue-sky'd day the clounds gathered and the rain started.Gillian was fortunate enough to catch a glimpse of Mars through a small telescope outside of the Sydney Observatory where we'd gone to try and view the event, but the larger fixed devices installed in the typical astronomers dome were sadly out of luck.
I had to make to with a tiny pin prick of light that I'm reliably informed was Mars, but could just have easily have been a distant aircraft.Interesting stuff though. Perhaps my luck will be better in 2018 which is the next time celestial conditions, if not climatic ones will be as favourable as this year though we don't get as close as we did in 2003 again until 2287.
While hunting around for stuff to pad this out with, I came across this site which is an attempt to collate the covers of every published edition of War of the Worlds and this sculpture in Woking comissioned for the centenury of the book. Both pretty cool.
