Of neither the real Mars nor that of Ray Bradbury... actually it's Edgar Rice Burroughs.  You know how it goes, you're in a conversation on the net and are referred to a long and interesting article on something or other, and a minor side-comment in the article reminds you of something... and it really isn't justifiable as a reply.  In this case, it had to do with ERB's Mars and how inhabitants could interbreed with earthlings and how silly that was.  And it reminded me of a long-held theory about John Carter which I never got around to making a fanfic out of.  I have the oddest feeling I've written this down before but I don't see it in my backlog so forgive me if you've seen this before.

The idea is, that a few hundred years or so before A Princess of Mars, a red Martian warrior was out exploring or lost or something the way they seem to get in these tales, and ran into the enclave of one of those mad scientists with which the planet seems rather rife.  This mad scientist had a powerful telescope he used to watch Earth among other places, also a sort of long distance teleporter focused on same and methods to adapt the passenger to the higher gravity at his destination, also to appear like one of the local races.  Since he wasn't about to go there himself, he sent the red Martian.  So he got sent to Earth, coming out the other end looking like the European humans the scientist had been watching at the time.  The idea was to look around for awhile, then come back, but somewhere along the line he lost all memory of the whole thing.  So it wasn't for many years that he accidentally activated the return mechanism .  Thus, we have the explanation for John Carter's long life (same as the red Martians), interfertility with Dejah Thoris, and so forth.  And apparently the return mechanism works both ways, and he can bounce back and forth from Earth to Mars pretty much ad lib.  Maybe he'll find that mad scientist some day and find out why...

I've no plans to use this so if anybody else wants to, feel free (and send me a copy).

Of something interesting...  From an article in Sky and Telescope:

Curiosity Finds Methane, Other Organics

By: Camille M. Carlisle |

December 17, 2014

NASA’s Curiosity rover has detected both methane in Mars’s atmosphere and carbon-bearing organic compounds in its rocks.

On December 16th, team members with NASA’s Mars Science Laboratory reported that the Curiosity rover has confirmed the presence of methane and other organic compounds on Mars. But it’s unclear where these molecules come from — or whether there’s any biological connection.

There are several ways to add methane to Mars's atmosphere (and take it away again). Although microbes are the most exciting possibility, other likely sources include reactions between water and the minerals olivine or pyroxene, or solar ultraviolet radiation breaking up meteoritic dust on the planet's surface.
NASA / JPL-Caltech / SAM-GSFC / Univ. of Michigan

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