Is this earth unique?
Is there life on other planets?
Mariner IV's photos give testimony to a story so big,
so awesome that even the scientists and astronomers with all their technology are unable to comprehend.
Read the shocking truth in this article.
FAR OUT in the vast, foreign void of outer space — over a HUNDRED MILLION MILES FROM EARTH — a tiny, silvery speck neared the end of a fantastic 325-MILLION-MILE JOURNEY.
Back on earth hundreds of scientists and technicians hunched anxiously over their unbelievable complex of computers, meters and sensitive instruments. Giant dish-shaped antennae — poised spaceward — seemed to strain — listening!
Then it came!
The incredibly faint radio signals, homing in from 135 MILLION MILES away. Carrying, perhaps, the most unprecedented technical information ever sought for by man — actual photographs of the PLANET MARS.
What Scientists Saw
As the moments ticked by, then stretched into hours, days and weeks, the picture story slowly and graphically unfolded. The speculation of centuries, the questions and theories of astronomers and space scientists inexorably became fact. The planet Mars is a lonely pock-marked wasteland — A DEAD PLANET, covered with craters and scars — UNINHABITED.
Scientists, in viewing these graphic photographs, described the planet as a vast wasteland covered — like the lunar surface — with craters, they claimed, up to 5 billion years old. The mounting evidence seems to conclude that our earth is unique among the other planets of our solar system and that life such as we know it here on earth may exist NOWHERE ELSE.
President Johnson, who followed the space probe with acute interest and who personally examined the Mars photos, stated recently: "It just may be that life as we know it with its humanity is more unique than many have thought."
As graphic as these photographs taken by Mariner IV may be — as startling and conclusive as may have been their testimony — scientists have MISSED the true significance behind them.
Is the earth unique? Are we alone in this solar system? Is there other life?
Mars is only PART of the story! Scientists have been given a look at something fantastic. Yet, they have seen only a pinpoint of a story so graphic and startling that it is beyond their ability to comprehend. They have viewed mute testimony of something SO BIG, SO AWESOME in scope that with all their instruments and technology they have thus far not begun to comprehend its meaning.
That story has already been written. The facts have already been recorded, yet go unnoticed and ignored in today's frantic quest for knowledge.
You can know and understand! Read the awe-inspiring truth here in this article.
Historic Speculation
For centuries man has looked up into the heavens and wondered. When the first telescopes revealed that the pinpricks of light in the night sky were actually suns, planets and moons, speculation began — are there other heavenly bodies with LIFE on them?
Primitive telescopes and early astronomers found our sun mothered nine planets — held captive by her giant gravitational attraction. Each whirled around her in elliptical orbits. Since life flourished so abundantly on earth, why not on neighboring planets?
Early speculators even thought life might exist on the moon. In the year 1835 the scientific world was electrified by claims of Sir John Frederick Herschel that he had seen in his revolutionary new telescope living creatures — animals and even human beings on the lunar surface. His claims were later found to be a colossal hoax — but the speculation has continued.
The passing years with more accurate and powerful telescopes have given scientists and astronomers more diversified knowledge of our solar system with its nine planets — Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune and Pluto.
Mercury, a tiny planet 3,000 miles in diameter, is so near the sun no possible life could exist. The giant planets, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune — all over 30,000 miles in diameter compared to the earth's 8,000-mile diameter — are seemingly too distant from the sun to sustain life of any type. Most distant Pluto, apparently a tiny planet over 3 BILLION miles from the sun, certainly could not sustain life.
The only remaining prospects for the existence of life were Venus and Mars!
Venus is slightly nearer the sun than Earth and only slightly smaller, with a diameter of 7,600 miles. However, telescopic analysis reveals Venus to have a dense atmosphere of noxious gases, principally ammonia. Thus, Venus appeared also to be incompatible to life.
Until recently no telescope had penetrated its dense cloud cover. Just this year, however, the California Institute of Technology observatory in Pasadena succeeded in penetrating the cloud layer of Venus and further substantiated early conclusions: "The planet's landscape is dry and permeable — like sand or porous rock — and it's too hot to support life as we know it. Temperatures on Venus' surface range from 675 degrees Fahrenheit at the equator to 300 degrees at the poles." (Pasadena Independent, August 6, 1965)
Life on Mars?
Thus, the planet Mars remained!
Telescopic scrutiny seemed to reveal interesting possibilities. Mars is smaller than earth — 4,200 miles in diameter — and 140 million miles from the sun compared to the Earth's 93 million distance. At times the planet Mars has seemed to reveal canals or possible waterways which changed in appearance with some type of seasonal change. Polar caps of ice seemed to form and dissipate. Dark and light patches appeared to come and go with the "seasons." These indications gave credence to speculation that life presently exists or once had existed on Mars.
With the coming of modern rocketry and space "know-how" the means to FIND OUT the answers to these speculations became available.
Mariner IV
On November 28, 1964, after three previous technique-learning, fact-finding probes, Mariner IV began its historic journey. Launched by the now-famous Atlas-Agena rocket vehicle, Mariner IV contained a fantastic orientation of space instruments in its 575-pound payload.
After leaving Earth's atmosphere, Mariner IV extended its four purple-hued panel blades to the intense light of the sun in outer space — its 28 THOUSAND solar cells transforming the heat of the sun into electrical energy to activate the 31 THOUSAND electrical components aboard. Among those components was the "eye" of Mariner — its six-inch Vidicon tube peering through a built-in telescopic lens and aimed at the Martian landscape.
Three hundred million miles and two hundred twenty-eight days later Mariner IV — in position near the mysterious planet — was activated by its computer brain and by backup signals sent from earth. On July 14, 1965, the "take" began of the series of twenty-one photos of Mars.
Scientists and technicians on earth gave vent to pent-up emotions from the tense hours of waiting when Mariner's message from its tiny 10½ watt radio transmitter began activating the digital code computers.
PICTURES WERE BEING RECEIVED!
The Graphic Picture Story
The remarkable picture story relayed by Mariner IV from outer space and digested during the next days and weeks emphasized ONE GRAPHIC TRUTH — the incredible UNIQUENESS of the planet EARTH among its peers.
The haunting hope that the photos of Mars would reveal some form of life, perhaps evidence of a long-since-perished advanced society which built canals and cities slowly faded into impossibility.
As the photos came in, one by one, the Martian landscape revealed a crater-marked wasteland apparently unchanged by any water erosion. The lack of erosion on Mars means that no wind or water action has changed or affected Mars' surface for an untold number of years — scientists assume perhaps two to five BILLION YEARS.
No oceans, no streams, no pattern of watercourses like we might see on earth — even in our deserts. No sign there had ever been any seas — EVER. No volcanic evidence, no foliage, no cloud cover, no movement — NOTHING. Only a wasteland pock-marked with the evidence of ancient meteoric bombardment.
Even the hope that in some remote and sheltered depressions some moisture might collect to sustain some form of life dimmed. Mariner IV's radio transmissions through the Martian atmosphere revealed an atmosphere so attenuated as to approximate a partial vacuum. The Martian atmospheric pressure is only 1 to 2 percent of what we experience here on earth. Even if water did collect in damp recesses, it would almost instantly disappear through "flash distillation."
Even though some hope is still held for some microscopic form of hardy life on Mars, the undeniable truth is still apparent — MARS IS A DEAD PLANET Mars is a void and a wasteland — there is NO LIFE THERE.
Jet Propulsion Laboratory Bulletin
On August 4, 1965, the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena released the official report of Mariner IV's findings, complete with all 21 photographs.
Here are excerpts from that report:
"Man's first close-up look at Mars has revealed the scientifically startling fact that at least part of its surface is covered with large craters.
"Frame number 11 must be ranked as one of the most remarkable scientific photographs of this age.
"The existence of Martian craters is demonstrated beyond question; their meaning and significance is, of course, a MATTER OF INTERPRETATION. The SEVENTY craters clearly distinguishable on Mariner's photos . . . range in diameter from 3 to 75 miles. It seems likely that smaller craters exist.
"The number of craters per unit area of the Martian surface is closely comparable to the densely-cratered up land areas of the MOON. If the Mariner sample is representative of the Martian surface, the total number of craters is more than TEN THOUSAND . . . In appearance, the Martian craters resemble impact craters.
"Some mention must be made of features looked for, BUT NOT SEEN on the Mariner photos. Although the flight line crossed several 'canals' . . . no trace of these features was discernible. No Earth-like features, such as mountain chains, great valleys, ocean basins or continental masses were recognized.
". . . Mars is more moon-like than Earth-like. Reasoning by analogy with the moon, much of the heavily cratered surface of Mars must be very ancient — perhaps [they claimed] two to five BILLION years old.
"The remarkable state of preservation of such an ancient surface leads us to the inference that NO ATMOSPHERE significantly denser than the PRESENT very thin one has characterized the planet since the surface was born. Similarly, it is difficult to believe that FREE WATER in quantities sufficient to form streams or to fill oceans could have existed anywhere on Mars since that time.
"The Earth is internally dynamic, giving rise to mountains, continents, and other features while the topographic features of Mars have NOT BEEN PRODUCED by stress and deformation within the planet. Mars evidently has long been INACTIVE.
"THE MARINER PHOTOS WILL PROFOUNDLY AFFECT SCIENTIFIC VIEWS ABOUT THE ORIGIN AND EVOLUTION OF PLANETARY BODIES IN THE PLANETARY SOLAR SYSTEM!"
The Real Significance
Mankind has been given a look, through Mariner's spectacular photographs, at a profound truth so startling and sobering that if it were understood by scientists, it would instantly revolutionize human thinking.
The empty wasteland, the absence of ANY life, the profound "deadness" of Mars and the chaotic evidence of surface scars from meteoric bombardment corroborate and verify the ancient truth revealed by ALMIGHTY GOD in His Word! "THE HEAVEN, EVEN THE HEAVENS, ARE THE LORD'S: BUT THE EARTH HATH HE GIVEN TO THE CHILDREN OF MEN!" (Psa. 115:16)
Yes, the yawning craters and empty surface of a DEAD PLANET are a voice from ancient time echoing a fantastic story of OUTER SPACE already written in the words of the BIBLE — the book so many own but so few read and BELIEVE.