Nexus - 0223 - New Times Magazine-pages

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have identified what they believe is a water ice-cap more than 180 _ Arctic voyager. Perhaps the most interesting expedition ever con- miles in diameter on Mercury's north pole... The researchers saw ducted in the Arctic area is chronicled in Nansen's 679-page two- a bright area at the north pole... We were amazed’." volume work whose complete title is, Farthest North: Being the Marshall Gardner devotes 27 pages of his book to the study of Record of a Voyage of Exploration of the Ship "Fram" 1893-96 preliminary planets, better known as nebulae. Here are a few and of a Fifteen Months’ Sleigh Journey by Dr Nansen and Lieut. comments. "The spectroscope supplies the answer...the spectro- Johansen. On page 120, when the 13-man crew had already scope has proven absolutely that the nebula is not made up of reached almost 77°N latitude, Nansen observes: "It was a strange stars...the typical nebula has a remarkable shell-like structure and _ feeling to be sailing away north in the dark night to unknown a central star...a search made with a spectrograph and the Lick lands, over an open, rolling sea, where no Ship, no boat had been 36-inch telescope for rotation effects... Definite evidence of rota- before. We might have been hundreds of miles away in more tion was found...” southerly waters, the air was so mild for September in this lati- On page 63, in reference to comets as being planets in the tude... We see ‘nothing but clean water’, as Henriksen answered process of destruction, Gardner writes: “Hecter MacPherson tells from the crow’s-nest when I called up to him... ‘They little think at us in his book, The Romance of Modem Astronomy, that the great home in Norway just now that we are sailing straight for the Pole comet of 1811, with a tail stretching for a hundred million miles __ in clear water’... I have almost to ask myself if this is not a dream. behind and fifteen million miles in breadth, had a nucleus that, One must have gone against the stream to know what it means to according to measurements by Herschel, was only 428 miles in go with the Stream.” diameter. The comet of Donati, detected from a Florence obser- Another of the major contributors to Arctic knowledge was US vatory in 1858, had a nucleus which ‘shone with a brilliance equal Army Lieutenant (later General) Adolphus Greely. Like other to that of the Polar Star’ and which was 630 miles in Arctic voyages, the Lady Franklin Bay expedition encountered the diameter...’even in the short period of man’s life, comets have been _ truly bitter cold conditions in the lower portion of the Arctic seen to break up and disappear’.” region, but less harsh climate as they Included in his many observa- ‘ neared 80° latitude, and especially mild tions concerning Mars, Gardner | s+» the polar openings are almost weather beyond the 80th parallel. On points out that besides the |. H page 369, when their party had attained numerous reports of the Martian always covered by a thick cloud the 81st latitude while map-making for pole being very bright and mak- layer. This explains why, when the Army on Ellesmere Island, Greely ing rapid size changes, ”...the H comments: “At that time a high warm light from the polar region of | viewed from satellites, the s wind was blowing from the interior, and Mars is a direct illuminant from openings look just as they would if § the temperature was considerably above within the planet, because that ; , 40 degrees (5 degrees Celsius).” His use light, seen at night, is yellow. there actually were the mythical of the word ‘interior’ was more profound- Any other sort of light, a reflec- ‘polar ice caps’ which government ly accurate than he realised. An example tion from a snowy surface for : * 1 of how dramatically the warm winds instance, or a veleetion from policy claims are at the Earth s from the interior affect the far north exte- sand or mountain surfaces, extremities. rior is demonstrated in this passage from would be white.” On page 80A, page 192, when the winds had for a long Gardner displays eight excellent while been from the south: "At J0 pm, photographs of Mars recorded at 16th February, the mercurial thermome- the Yerkes Obscrvatory and which show the "...so-called snow- ters thawed out, after having been frozen continuously for sixteen cap projected beyond the planet's surface, which precludes all days and five hours. This is the longest time on record during possibility of its being snow or ice.” In writing of the English which mercury has remained frozen." astronomer J. Norman Lockyer's report to the Royal Astronomical Dr I. I. Hayes, with the schooner United States, wrote of his far Society of England: “The snow-zone was at times so bright that, north voyage in The Open Polar Sea. They were utterly bewil- like the crescent of the young moon, it appeared to project beyond _ dered by the inexplicable increase in temperature whenever the the planet's limb. This effect of irradiation was frequently visible: high Arctic wind sustained from the north. While stalled by a on one occasion the Snow-spot was observed to shine like a nebu- strong persistent wind out of the north for much of the first two lous star when the planet itself was obscured by clouds...’ That weeks of November, Hayes noted that after the great initial masses luminosity is precisely what our own aurora borealis would look _ of ice had been driven past them, there were none more to replace like if our planet was viewed from a great distance. And the light them. He adds: "November 13: Worse and worse. The tempera- is the same in both cases." ture has risen again, and the roof over the upper deck gives us As lame as the official government position is in postulating ice, | once more a worse than tropic shower... November 14: The wind snow or frozen carbon dioxide as composing the Martian poles, has been blowing for nearly twenty-four hours from the north- imagine their predicament in the case of Venus. By their own east, and yet the temperature holds on as before... 1 have done admission, the temperature on Venus is well in excess of 800 with speculation. A warm wind from the mer de glace...makes degrees Fahrenheit—quite a place to put an ice cap! Whether by mischief with my theories, as facts have heretofore done with the choice or by chance, the Jet Propulsion Laboratory of the National theories of wiser men.” Aeronautics and Space Administration released a few remarkable Ship's surgeon for the Advance and Rescue, Dr Elisha Kent radar-generated photographs of Venus in early 1989. One of these Kane recorded his extensive Arctic experience in Arctic close-up images, in which the cloud-piercing radar reveals with Explorations in Search of Sir John Franklin, experiences which excellent clarity the north polar opening, boldly graced the cover culminated near the 82nd parallel. The expedition progressed as of the April 1989 issue of Discover. Now back to Earth. far north as was practical in their ships, and then, when the amount Certainly one of the three greatest pioneers of polar exploration _of ice rendered additional progress impossible or at least unsafe, was Dr Fridtjof Nansen, the acclaimed Norwegian scientist and they continued their poleward journey on foot with sledges. But 44 ¢ NEXUS DECEMBER 1994 - JANUARY 1995