C olin wanted to meet me in Aldsworth. I’d never heard
of it but it was only about five miles away, between where I got married and where the reception was. Colin was the guy behind the British Mars shot a few years back — Colin Pillinger, the man who, given half a chance, could do for science what Damien Hirst has done for art: popularise, subvert and sophisticate at a stroke. You may remember his spacecraft Beagle 2 crash-landed on Mars on Christmas Day 2003.
Space science is the great adventure of the 21st century. The first man on Mars has been born, no doubt about it. Colin knows that. I think he also knows that there is, or has been, life on the planet already. ‘Did you know they’ve just found water?’ he said, as we were ordering lunch. Then his phone rang. It was the science correspondent from the Sun. Colin had to calm him down. ‘Life on Mars is the story they all want,’ he whispered to us. ‘Look,’ he went on, in his unmistakeable West Country accent, ‘Phoenix can’t tell us if there’s any biology going on. That was what was special about Beagle. Beagle could have done that.’ The conversation ran on, all of it rather far-fetched for a rainy Friday lunchtime in Gloucestershire, but that’s what’s irresistible about rocket scientists. They’re preoccupied with out-of-this-world phenomena. ‘Well, we’re going to have to bring samples back to earth to test them to be sure, but then you risk contaminating this planet with an alien life form ... ’ he continued on the phone. Then to the waiter, ‘I’ll have the fish and chips.’ I ordered a steak and kidney pie. Judith, Colin’s wife, had the goat cheese.
They are such an excellent couple, a team: a binary system. Colin consumed by curiosity, curiosity linked to a V12 traction drive, ever practical in the face of the absolute, constantly seeking to put form on the indeterminate and kept in a stable orbit by Judith’s balancing, supportive, illuminating gravity.
Colin cut his teeth as a scientist analysing pieces of the moon brought back to Earth by the Apollo astronauts. I briefly owned a few crumbs of the moon from one of those missions. They were a gift from a friend with connections at NASA. They were magical things. I’d sit holding one when the moon was up and marvel at how someone had gone there and brought this thing back. They made brilliant wedding presents. Moon rocks are just the beginning, though. There’s a whole universe out there.
The first time I met Colin he was holding a meteorite. That was the first one I’d seen, a piece of Mars. Since then I’ve seen quite a few, including the most famous one of all, also from Mars, ALH84001, which is famous because it looks very much as if it contains bacteria, although it’s not been conclusively proved. Meteorites are endlessly fascinating. A lot of the ones I’ve seen fit snugly in the palm. There is something wonderful about being able to hold something comfortably that has been floating around in space for longer than the Earth has existed: a cold, bite-sized piece of elsewhere.
Life here probably started with a Martian meteorite. Mars used to have a substantial atmosphere. It has water, like Colin said, and it’s a bit further from the sun, so it would have cooled quicker than the Earth, allowing biology to start there before it would have done here. About 70 tons of Mars falls to Earth every year, material ejected from meteorite impacts there, and it wouldn’t have taken a miracle for bacteria in a meteorite from Mars to reach earth intact. It might be a meteorite that sees us all off, too. That’s what did it for the dinosaurs, by the looks of things.
Meteorites, particularly Martian ones, are quite valuable to scientists and there have been a number of expeditions to Antarctica to recover them. They’re easiest to spot in Antarctica. It’s a frozen desert and the things, including that famous one ALH84001, sit there for millennia just waiting to be picked up by a scientist.
I’ve always kind of got one eye out for meteorites when I’m walking around the countryside, looking subconsciously for a telltale burn crust or the dull gleam of iron, but only 25 have ever been found in the British Isles, and, of the 25, 22 of them were seen to fall: a flash, a fireball and then a bemused farmer holding a piece of outer space. In 1835 one fell on Aldsworth. Like all the others to fall on these shores it was from the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter. I guess we were 170 years late, but it was a good enough reason to meet for lunch.
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