Canals, on Mars

Historical events, such as the discovery of the (hypothetical) canals on Mars, led to strong general interest in Mars in the mid-nineteenth century. 

Perhaps the most famous stories of the period center on the possible existence of "canals on Mars, features that would certainly suggest to Earthlings the existence of intelligent life on the planet. The dreams of Martian canals was based on maps of the planets first drawn by Pietro Angelo Secchi (1818-78), a Jesuit monk and... 

Virtual reality game. Screen shot from the 3-D virtual reality video game Red Planet shoimng a spacecraft flying through a canal on Mars. (Peter Menzel/Photo Researchers, Inc.)... 

Space is not as empty as it once seemed. True, there are no men on the moon or canals on Mars, but there are oceans on Titan (methane) and three other moons (under ice). Water can be detected many places from its intense infrared color. This color is especially rich in comets and can be found in nebulae and dark lunar craters, even on the dark side of Mercury. Much of this water predated even the sun. 

Early observations of Mars by Giovanni Schiaparelli showed the existence of what Schiaparelli called canali, meaning channels. The existence of somewhat linear, light and dark channel-like features on Mars is affirmed by many other scientists, but the Italian word canali quickly acquired its popular and inaccurate meaning canals. Water can cut a channel, but only intelligent life can buUd a canal. 

Many people who did not speak Italian assumed that Schiaparelli was talking about "canals," presumably made hy intelligent beings, and with that interpretation came a flood of speculation, both scientific and literary, about the possibility that life existed on Mars, or that it had existed there at some time in the past. The debate over the possibility of life on Mars is one that continues, although in greatly reduced terms, to the present day. 

Italian astronomer, who became director of the Milan Observatory in 1860. There he studied asteroids, meteors, and planets. In 1877 he described canali among the surface features of Mars. The Italian word (which means channels ) was mistranslated as canals , establishing a long controversy about the possibility of intelligent life on Mars. 

---