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The rise and fall of the canals on Mars

Page history last edited by Scott White 15 years, 5 months ago

Summary of Today's Topic

 

Giovanni Sciaparelli (1835-1910) first discovered the canals in 1877.  He named them canali which in Italian can be translated into either channels or canals, the major difference between the two translations is that channels implies a natural landmark, while canals imply something made by inteligent beings.  He also discovered that Mars has polar caps which shrink and grow in accordance with Martians seasons.  If the polar caps changed according to Martians seasons, then this would mean the there was an atmosphere on Mars that could circulate moisture via evaporation, condensation, etc.  Mars was argued as the only planet hopeful for extraterrestrial life at this time. 

 

Lowell (1855-1916) was a wealthy Harvard-educated businessman who constructed and headed the Lowell Observatory, which is where he was able to make significant discoveries through his 24-inch aperture refracting telescope. Its main purpose was to observe other worlds for extraterrestrial life.  He was said to have found 183 canals, lined by vegetation and spotted with oases on the planet. He claims that he could see them clearly in 1895 during the opposition.  This led to a speculation about whether Martian canals were made by nature or inteligent life that started in 1895 and did not end until 1910.  Lowell advocated that there were Martians, but that they might not look like us, but they should be larger due to gravity and thus be able to do more work then we could. His calculations predicted the Martians being fifty-fold more efficient than earthlings.  This would make the Martian species much more advanced than humans. He says this is what allowed them to build the canals and try to save their dying planet, the belief that Mars was in its last stages of its evolutionary development (similar to what Proctor believed).  The idea of Mars in a dying stage is the basis for H.G. Wells' "The War of the Worlds."  In that story, the Martians come to conquer Earth because their planet is in its last stage of life and they need a new planet for habitation.  

 

Maunder believed that the canals were illusions and he tried to prove his theory through a psychological experiment with drawings on paper and distance from the paper.  He showed that if a person drawing the image was far from the original then certain objects come together in the illusions of a line.  He said that it was an illusion created by the surface of the planet itself and Earth's atmospheric interference. According to Maunder, the canals of Mars were not really canals because they were too narrow, there were discrepancies between astronomers who viewed them and also when to view them.

 

Antoniadi was credited for removing the claim of life on Mars. He did this by resolving the canals in to separate images, and using this to make his argument that the true apperance of Mars is natural, there was no geometrical network and the dark spots on the planet were "continental reigons."

 

In class we also discussed the optimal time for observance of Mars. This occurs during the time of opposition between Earth and Mars. The opposition occurs every 2 years and is when the orbits of Earth and Mars bring them the closest together. There also are optimal oppositions that occur every 15-17 years in which the clearest observations can be made. The characteristics of an optimal opposition is one in which Mars at the largest height and closest to the Earth. In general, for obseving any planet including Mars, a uniform patch of atmosphere is allows the observer to see the clearest. When you point a telescope toward a planet, you are not just looking into outer space. The light must travel through the layers of atmosphere before it reaches your telescope.

 

As an overall theme, we touched on the question of the "Limits of Science," and how scientists working at the frontier of what we know come to an agreement on what is true and what is false. This theme would be good to consider while studying Mars to include in our final class paper.

 


Key Terms and People

 

 

 

 

 


Relevent Links

 

Lowell Observatory:  http://www.lowell.edu/

Martian canals:  http://www.daviddarling.info/encyclopedia/M/Marscanals.html

1916 NYTimes article on Maunder and the illusions experiement:  http://query.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=9507E4DF1439E233A25750C2A9679C946796D6CF

 

"Mars Through a Telescope"

"The Man Who Invented Mars" - Cool picture of Percival Lowell using his telescope + article

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