Lowell, Percival

More than any other planet. Mars has captured our attention and fueled our speculations. Much of this interest relates to the possibility of martian hfe, as championed by Percival Lowell in the last century and subsequently in scientihc papers and science fiction. Lowell s argument for life on Mars was based partly on geochemistry, in that his assessment of the planet s hospitable climate was dependent on the identification of H2O ice rather than frozen CO2 in the polar caps. Although this reasoning was refuted by Alfred Wallace in 1907, widespread belief in extant... 

I m partial to the second, more mundane symbol, which has its origins in the world of science. That symbol (see Figure 10-3) represents both the first two letters of Pluto s name and the initials of the aristocratic astronomer Percival Lowell, who was so convinced that there was life on Mars that he built an observatory in Arizona for the sole purpose of observing it. At the same time, he devoted himself to a search for the mysterious Planet X, which he believed was revolving around the sun in the outskirts of the solar system, way past Neptune. He never found it. But 14 years after Lowell s death, Clyde Tombaugh worked doggedly at the Lowell Observatory and discovered Pluto. This symbol acknowledges Lowell s contributions. 

Mars, Earth s nearest planetary neighbor, has fascinated since ancient times. The Italian astronomer Giovanni V. Schiaparelli (1835-1910) observed Mars from Milan and drew pictures of canali ( canals ) in 1877. Harvard-educated astronomer Percival Lowell (1855-1916) moved to Flagstaff, Arizona and, in 1894, began many years of Mars observations. 

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