"That is nothing but an illusion," replied our friend. "All that a telescope does is reflect an image. A planet itself has no source of light, so it cannot give out light; but it is illumined by the sun's radiation which we call light. For this reason the same instrument cannot be used in studying the sun that we use on the planets and stars. The reflected image is a cold or negative light, while the direct radiation is a hot or positive light. However, all light is an electrical force or energy." "Thus you can understand how the ship is actually being pulled as well as pushed by the light or radiation which is steadily flowing from the sun towards the planet, travelling with the speed of light, as Earth men call it, while we say at the speed of the sun's radiation." One thousand miles out from Mars we entered a shower of meteors of various sizes. This we have been able to enjoy thoroughly, without fear, for we know the ship is equipped with a repulsing power which extends five hundred miles into space, thus protecting us from a dangerous bombardment. But five hundred miles is a long way, so Bob wanted to know why it was necessary for the power to extend that far from the ship. One of the ship's scientists answered Bob's question. "Meteors travel so fast that were they not deflected so far from the ship, they would be upon us before we knew it. Even so, there are some very large meteors which are able to penetrate this outer wall of protection. During the entire time of passing through these showers we observe our screen closely so when we see a meteor continuing towards us, we have time to throw our heavier power of protection into operation, which is the middle wall of the ship. Its influence extends only two hundred fifty miles into space but is so strong that no meteor yet has ever been able to penetrate it. When we first attempted interplanetary travelling our ships were built with only a single wall, but then we lost many of them due to the heavy meteoric bombardment. Even then the ships of other planets were constructed with three bodies and used the law of repulsion for safe travelling. Since we learned this and built our ships accordingly, we too have enjoyed safe travelling to Venus, Saturn, and Jupiter. There are rather heavy meteoric showers between the Earth and the Moon, and the Moon and Mars, but between Mars and the other planets they are much heavier, with far larger meteors."