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25
WEDNESDAY
Albert Einstein showed us that everything is relative—especially in space. So please, be patient with our Martian researchers; spending mondo dollars just to find evidence of life there—in this case, even a little water, way, way down would suffice—really is worth it. Just ask the current governor of California, who once helped jump-start an atmosphere-making device left by some industrious, long-forgotten inhabitants of the Red Planet. Good for him. (And hats off to Arnold, too, for advancing fertility research with his work in Junior.) Real life’s best hope, however, is a device known as the MARSIS Radar Sounder, which will, with luck, find on that far-off world some trace of what covers two-thirds of our own planet. Thomas Watters leads you through the saga of “The Search for Subsurface Water on Mars: The MARSIS Radar Sounder” at noon at the National Air and Space Museum, 7th Street and Independence Avenue SW. Free. (202) 357-2700. (Mike Kanin)