Why did you choose the Mars Prize?

Mars is one of the most important and closely related planets in the past, present and future.

Mars is one of the brightest stars in the sky. Its flaming red color obviously occupies the most conspicuous position in the night sky, which has long attracted people's eyes looking up at the starry sky. Because its brightness changes frequently, the air movement in the air is uncertain, complicated and unpredictable. China called it "fudge" in ancient times. After the rise of the theory of Yin-Yang and Five Elements, the five planets merged with the five elements, because the red body was also called Mars.

In China's ancient astrology, Mars is a fierce star, and "flicker" is an ominous sign. The red color of Mars symbolizes death, war and blood. The phenomenon of "Mars stays in Antares" and "South Fight" is extremely dangerous, which indicates the disaster of emperors and the chaos of the world. Mars thus became perhaps the most important star in the history of China, which made Qin sleepless all night and made the emperor frown. "All over the world, leading the world", all fell down in fear under the red figure.

With this, Mars has intentionally or unintentionally changed the fate track of China's history.

In the summer of 534 AD, Yingying entered Nandu. As the saying goes, "Yingying fights in the south, and the son of heaven goes to the temple", so Liang Wudi, who is over 70 years old, had to go to the temple barefoot. Unexpectedly, this vision turned out to be in the Northern Wei Dynasty-Emperor Xiaowu of the Northern Wei Dynasty was driven westward by Gao Huan and poisoned by Yu Wentai's poisoned wine. Since then, the Northern Wei Dynasty was divided into the Eastern Wei Dynasty and the Western Wei Dynasty, and was soon replaced by the Northern Qi Dynasty and the Northern Zhou Dynasty. I had to say unconvinced: "Lu should also be evil!" " However, the situation at that time was that Emperor Xiao led hundreds of thousands of troops, with Hu Sichun as the forerunner, and Gao Huan traveled more than 800 miles a day to confront Di Wei across the river. Hu Sichun invited him to cross two thousand horses at night to attack Gao Huan, but Yang Kuan, assistant minister of Huangmen, suggested: "If you cross the river in spring and spring, if you make meritorious deeds, you will destroy Gao Huan and give birth to Gao Huan." Hu Sikun couldn't join the army, so he had to sigh: "I went to Nandou for a while, but now I believe in the left and right structure." I don't need my plan, how can it be heaven! " Emperor Wei did not dare to cross the river to attack the tired soldiers, so he divided his forces to defend. In the end, he had to resign himself to fate and wait for death, but this was only the fulfillment of the astronomical phenomena.

In Gan Bao's "Searching for the Gods", an interesting story is recorded, which expresses people's understanding of Mars: "The country built by Wu is not strong in faith, and all his wives are allowed, which is called quality assurance. There are dozens of boys and teenagers who entertain tourists with their peers every day. In March of the third year of Yongan, Sun Xiu, there was a strange boy, more than four feet long, maybe six or seven years old. He was dressed in Tsing Yi and suddenly came to play with the children. All the children were puzzled and asked,' Who is your child? "I suddenly came today," replied, "I saw your group playing music, so I came to join in the fun." Look closely, there is light in your eyes, shoot it out. The child was scared and asked * * * again. The son replied,' Are you afraid of me? I am not a person, but a shining star. There will be an announcement: the three public funds will go to Sima. "The children were frightened. Or tell your honor. Adults are scrambling to watch. The son said, "Will Schell go?" Shrugging your shoulders and jumping is to melt. Look up, it will take a while to ascend to heaven. When adults come, it's still too late to watch. Higher and higher, but it's not. When Wu Zhengjun was in a hurry, he was afraid to announce it. Four years later, Shu died, six years later, Wei was abolished, and 21 years later, Wu Ping was returned to Sima. "So, fluorescent star, really like destiny? In the west, the myth about Mars is equally long. Around 3000 BC, Sumerians in the two river basins invented characters and named the constellations in the sky. They associated Mars with blood, war and other dangerous things, and named it after Nigel, their god of war, destruction and death. Later, the Greeks and Romans followed the Sumerians' way of naming planets and called Mars by their names Ares and Mars. Up to now, Mars is still the international common name of Mars.

Since the Greeks, planets, especially Mars, have begun to play a more important role in western history. Unlike their eastern neighbors, who were only content to get a little warning from heaven, the Greeks explored the secrets of the universe with confidence and courage. Pythagoras believes that everything is a number, the universe is the harmony of numbers, and the movement of celestial bodies should also reflect this harmony and perfection. Plato and Aristotle believe that the real motion of planets is perfect motion. The circle is the most perfect geometric figure, so the perfect motion of the planet is uniform circular motion. According to the requirement of this perfect motion, Greek astronomers built a system of current and even wheels, and they successfully explained the seemingly chaotic motion of planets in the sky with uniform circular motion and its combination.

However, it seems that the Red Planet is really endowed with the grumpy and wild personality of the God of War, and its trajectory often deviates from the prediction of the perfect motion model. Although Ptolemy gave up the Greek principle of perfection little by little and established his own geocentric system, Copernicus had to boldly move the center of the universe from the earth to the sun to establish the Heliocentrism system in order to restore the Greek principle of perfection, but it seems difficult to accurately explain the movement of this red planet. It was not until Tycho and Kepler observed Mars for 20 years that they discovered that Mars orbits the sun in an elliptical orbit, and finally proved the three laws of planetary motion. It was on the basis of Kepler that Newton got a simpler and more consistent law of celestial motion and even the interaction of matter-the law of universal gravitation. In this process, Mars seems to be a "flaw" deliberately left by the creator. Although the irregularity of its operation confuses most people's eyes and thoughts, it also tempts several talented brains to explore deeply and finally reveals the law of the creator's "creation" of the world.

1608, the Dutch Kenneth Lieberthal invented the telescope. Galileo immediately used it to observe celestial bodies and found that Jupiter has four satellites, Venus has phase changes and there are peaks on the moon. With the increasing aperture of the telescope, more and more planets are observed and studied, and the mysterious Mars is no exception. In the crash of Mars on 1877, Hall of the United States discovered two satellites of Mars, faubus and Deimos. It was also in this year that the Italian Xia Barreri drew a plan of Mars. He found that there are some dark lines on the surface of Mars that pass through bright areas (regarded as land) and connect some dark areas (regarded as oceans), much like the strait connecting the oceans, so he called these dark lines Canali. The word is translated into English as Canals, which means that there may be intelligent creatures on Mars and large-scale water conservancy projects can be built. People are boiling, and a fantastic topic about life on Mars has been opened for a long time. American Lowell took thousands of photos of Mars, drew more than 500 canals, and published Mars and its Canal (1906) and Mars as a Residence (1908). The names of these two books well express his belief in the existence of intelligent life on Mars.

1898, H·G· Wells changed his belief in the existence of intelligent life on Mars into the science fiction Star Wars, describing the invasion of the earth by Martians, and "Martians" became a household name. It can be said that it was Wells who first successfully created and enriched the concept of extraterrestrial life. 1938, orson welles, the director of Citizen Kane, adapted the novel and recorded it as a program. It was like a real broadcast that caused a sensation in the whole city. Millions of people fled their homes trembling and cried in fear. Edgar rice burroughs's Princess of Mars, like a gorgeous space opera, describes an imaginary world of Mars, which makes the adventures of Captain Carter of the Earth and Princess Deya Solis of Mars vivid and exciting. Russian scientist Chiokovsky not only studied rocket technology, but also wrote a science fiction novel Beyond the Earth (1929), which described the story of human beings exploring Mars in a rocket spaceship and then returning to Earth. His famous saying is: "The earth is the cradle of human beings, but people can't live in the cradle forever." Since then, Mars and Martians have become important cities for science fiction writers.

However, although the imagination of Martians is exciting, people's understanding of Mars is not consistent. Many scientists believe that the canal is only an illusion when the vision reaches its limit, and Mars cannot retain liquid water. The so-called canal is just a huge crack caused by the dryness of the surface of Mars. Since the 1960s, human beings have been sending probes to Mars, and finally found that the canal does not exist. Mars is an arid and barren land.

However, human exploration and imagination of Mars have not stopped. Mars is the closest planet to the earth. About 4 billion years ago, the climate of Mars was similar to that of the Earth, with rivers, lakes and even oceans. There is still water on Mars now. It is of great significance to study the climate change of Mars and find the oasis and traces of life on Mars. In the long run, Mars is also the first choice for human planet migration. The plan to land on Mars never stopped.

In the history of science fiction, novels about Mars are still emerging one after another. 1934, Weinbaum created a novel and gentle Martian creature in Roaming Mars. 1950, Ray bradbury published The Chronicle of Mars. This novel describes the consequences of human colonization of Mars and nuclear war on the earth, rendering a picture of interstellar civilization from prosperity to decline, full of desolation of the universe, and it is very difficult to read. 1992, Jack Williamson completed The Beach Fortress, which described the landing of Mars. In the same year, Kim Stanley Robinson began to write a trilogy on Mars, which recorded the chronicle of human colonization and globalization on Mars: red Mars (1992), green Mars (1993) and blue Mars (1996). 1999 also published an additional short story "Martians". Greg Bear's Moving Mars was completed on 1993 and won the nebula award next year. In the 1990s, Ben Bova published several science fiction novels describing human exploration of planets of the solar system, including Mars (1992), Returning to Mars (1999), Venus and Jupiter. At the end of 2000, Geoffrey Landis published his first novel Crossing Mars. In China, from 65438 to 0954, Zheng, the father of science fiction literature, wrote the famous novel From Earth to Mars. 1957, he created the builder of Mars.

The film and television drama about Mars was filmed by the Queen of Mars as early as 1924. 1953, Wells' novel was adapted into the film Martians Invasion of the Earth. 1955, the devil of Mars. /kloc-Uncle Martin in the 1960s is an unrepeatable classic. Besides, you can name some familiar names: World War II, Martians Around the Earth, mission to mars, Red Planet, Wandering Mars, He's from Mars, Ghost of Mars, Chronicle of Mars ... Even Tom and Jerry want to go to Mars to play The Adventures of Mice and Mars. ...

Mars, a beautiful planet, carries the imagination of the first civilization of mankind, connects our present and entrusts with the hope of the future. No matter which nation's myths, legends and stories have never turned a blind eye to it, its importance may be unimaginable and irreplaceable. Every fantasy fan has a Mars in his soul. As Armstrong said, one small step on the moon is one giant leap for mankind. The Mars Prize represents China's vision and hope, and its spark can ignite the blazing fire of China's fantasy.