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The waves

As the Wind Blows

Name:
Location: Chennai, Tamilnadu, India

30 August 2003

Replica of Earth? :-)

I know I am a bit late for blogging about Mars. But I couldn’t help sharing this strange notion I have. Did you notice the front-page photo of Mars published in Hindu dated 28th August? Unfortunately, I couldn't find the exact photo on online edition, to give a link. The one they have shown doesn't look like the one I saw on hard copy. Meanwhile, just grab the hard copy from your old paper cupboard :-) and checkout my interpretations:-)

At first glance, it so much looked like Earth. And then when I scrutinized the photo more deeply, observing the black dots and the outline of curves, I began to feel that the Planet REALLY looked like earth. The contours of Indian subcontinent, and slightly on the left, the African continent and a little further left the Americas. And on the right, the rest of Asia – only "Australia" looked out of place – hanging too close below Asia, instead of staying far off down under as in real Earth. And on the ice patch in South Pole didn’t it look Antarctica? I do seem to have wild imagination. My son laughed me off when I painstakingly explained to him all the replica of earth’s contours on Mars. But common, why not allow your imagination a free hand – if we can see maps and faces and animals in passing clouds, we can of course see the Earth in Mars. Who knows, one day somebody might really prove that Mars indeed was like earth eons ago. So, in the event of THAT happening in distant future, let Waves be the first to record such “Facts” (!!) Mars certainly is in my list of exotic places to visit in future – may be several lifetimes later J The other place is Antarctica. Long back I met the team which established the first Indian Station in Antarctica. And now after so many years I had the opportunity to speak to another Indian who keeps visiting the ice continent as easily and as often as we visit our neighborhood picnic spots. Meet in this story, Dr. Anandakrishnan after whose name a glacier in Antarctica is christened.

btw, you must have heard that theroy right? that Antarctica and Southern part of India were in one single land mass thousands of years ago? Looking at Mars photo, I was amused to find a huge land mass just below the "Indian Subcontinent":-)




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