Red weed floats down the Thames by Kew Bridge. The Martians are busy aero-forming Earth to make it more like their dying Martian home. The South East lies in ruins and London is abandoned.

Meanwhile in a house in Mortlake, Francis Spufford is joined by Professor Sally Shuttleworth (St Annes, Oxford) and space scientist Maggie Aderin-Pocock to consider Martian evolution and appearance in a terrifying close encounter.