Are you the Martian the world is looking for?

“Martian water has been touched and tasted” quotes a triumphant report from NASA. The Phoenix lander has been doing phenomenal research on the Martian soils. The MRO (Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter) has been beaming radar images of the surface and subsurface of Mars for over 4 years. Huge teams of scientists, ET (extra terrestrial) geologists, from across the world regularly analyze these data searching for vital clues to know if life ever existed or could exist on that red planet.

Since the beginning of the 19th century (or perhaps, since humankind could develop powerful optical telescopes) our curiosity for Mars is afresh. People in every walk of life from planetary observers to common man like you and me are interested in knowing about this mysterious neighbour. The number of spacecraft missions to Mars between 1960s to 2000 is a whooping 37, which holds testimony to our relentless search for knowledge about this planet.

What are we indeed looking for? Water? Minerals? Rare metals? Fuel? Or life itself? What is that one thing which pins is down to this planet? Despite finding frozen water beneath the surface of Titan (moon of Saturn), our search in Mars has never been quenched.
“Part of the reason we are so eagerly searching for extraterrestrial life is that we have not yet determined the origins of life on the Earth!” writes Dr. Alexander Bagrov from the Russian Institute of Sciences. This is the turning point in the story.

Why could it not be, that life on Earth was impregnated from Mars?

Why could it not be, that an earlier, more sophisticated life form from Mars has seeded our evolution? I believe the whole problem has to be seen from this new perspective.

I may sound absurd or wildly imaginative, but if you can fix the results from various explorations together, you may end up in my favour. “The images from Mars3 orbiter depict features which looked very much like river canyons. This made scientists wonder if water had existed on Mars! We now know that Mars was once a warm and humid planet with rivers presumably capable of supporting life” writes Bagrov. Facts like these only add to my claim.

Yes, I hear your question. Although we don’t quite well know about the origin of life on Earth, we have proved scientifically about evolution and how complex organisms evolved from the simplest amoeba. If such would be the case, how could life come from Mars?

To answer this question, we must review that one factor which is hindering human space travel – COSMIC radiation. These high energy rays would spare space crafts, but cause fatal mutations in complex organisms. Hence our ancestors in Mars should have been left with the only option of protecting and sending the simplest of all life forms – amoeba.

Mankind has always been thirsty to know its own roots, whether be the attachment to races or the highly scientific global genome mapping project. Perhaps this is one such search. We should await until the bigger picture unfolds.

A Bangalore fly-by

It was a beautiful sunset and a busy evening; I packed my back-pack as I had to leave to Hyderabad from Coimbatore after a long vacation. Those long years in college and the grooming as a corporate professional could remotely change my attitude from a whining school boy reluctant to leave home for school. I found hard to push myself to leave for work the next day.
As I waited in the verandah, dad arrived and we left for the Coimbatore domestic airport. Ours is a simple, small and a quiet airport, much unlike that of any other metro in India. The serene look and the calmness in the milieu had a soothing effect; I and dad drifted to our chat soon. We started with the world of IT and when we finished talking about grid computing I realized that only 20 minutes were left for the take off!

When I entered the airport, the security check had finished and I was the last one to report! The routine screening and checks were over and I found myself sitting beside a window inside the airplane. The aircraft took off, houses, roads and people became miniatures; the horizon expanded and the strange bliss I acquire every time I flew arrived – perhaps it was the desire to become a photogrammetist which was getting fulfilled, at least partially.
I flipped open my sony phone in in-flight mode and tried my best at capturing the beauty of rustic India at sunset. Alas, the cabin lights were too bright and caused an internal reflection subverting my photography. I settled with the Deccan Airways magazine and skimmed quietly through it.

An hour passed and raspy voice echoed through the speakers. The captain announced the bearings, the 17,000 ft altitude, 490 kmph velocity and the -2°C outside temperature. What he announced next was had such a lasting impact on me that it motivated me to write this entire article. It was the Bangalore fly-by; a night vision of Bangalore from the sky.

Hurriedly, I switched off the reading light and peeped down the window. I was awe-struck. I saw the Las Vegas of India, our silicon city dazzling with its jewel like lamps. Glistening, sparkling lights, the traffic inching through the roads gave the reality of Bangalore even from the sky. An arterial road looked like a sparkling platinum chain and a splatter of lights forming a disc below it looked like a dollar and on the whole I saw a mammoth necklace dazzling in the night.The plane canted to its right and I got an even better vision of the city. The roads emerged clear with their street lamps, ambient glow from roadside shops, discrete and berserk run of vehicle lamps. From the sky this vision recalled that of an artery and the red blood corpuscles rushing down it. Now anyone who had seen this would know why, are these roads termed as arterial!The sight was so irresistible; I had to pen down those few words that blurt out of my mind during my first sight, thankfully my habit of carrying the ATM slips came to rescue. As I jotted down these visions on the back of the slips, I saw the air hostess watching me with a tinkle in her eye depictive of surprise and joy.

This fly-by lasted for just ten minutes after which I saw the dull and occasional sparks of light from the suburban places below. The sporadic distribution of lights appeared in unique and peculiar shapes. Those clusters of tiny lights in abstract shapes looked as if it were a weird communication with aliens.

In another half hour the plane landed in the brand new Shamsabad airport, Hyderabad. The airport was gleaming clean an obviously fine work from GMR group of companies. With the geographer and writer satisfied in my, I started towards the office.