In 1894, the idea of intelligent life on Mars received a lot of attention based on observations related to canals on the Martian surface. The canal hypothesis was long considered true by the astronomical community due to the influence of authoritative astronomers and the scientific limitations of the time, but slowly faded away as advances in telescope technology in the early 20th century exposed its fallacies.
In 1894, claims of the existence of highly evolved, intelligent life on Mars gained media attention. These claims were based on the intricate tangle of lines called canals that appeared on maps of Mars at the time. The Martian canals were first reported in 1878 and continued to appear on various maps of Mars for nearly 30 years. How could the non-existent Martian canals have been accepted by astronomers for so long?
In the late 19th century, many maps of Mars were made based on telescopic observations, especially in September 1877, when Earth was simultaneously close to Mars and the Sun, making the Martian surface appear brighter than ever before. British amateur astronomer Nathaniel Everett Green traveled to Madeira Island, Portugal, where the atmosphere was clear, and used a 13-inch reflecting telescope to sketch Mars as he saw it. “Nathaniel Everett Green had a lot of experience observing Mars, so he drew on his own observations and those of other astronomers to create the most sophisticated map of the Red Planet at the time.
However, the accuracy of Nathaniel Everett Green’s map was challenged the following year when Italian astronomer Giovanni Virginio Schiaparelli published a map of Mars. “Giovanni Virginio Schiaparelli’s map was based on observations made at the same time as Nathaniel Everett Green. This is because some areas were blurred in Nathaniel Everett Green’s maps, while Giovanni Virginio Schiaparelli’s maps showed a network of intersecting lines. “Giovanni Virginio Schiaparelli called them canali, a term that can be translated as straits or canals.
As Italian astronomer Giovanni Virginio Schiaparelli’s claims spread through the academic community, people became more interested in the idea of Martian canals. Mass media and science magazines covered the story extensively, and the idea of intelligent life on Mars captured the public’s imagination. This spurred discussions about Mars not only in the scientific community but also among the general public, and some people even began to seriously discuss the possibility of interacting with Martians.
In terms of procedure, Nathaniel Everett Green had an edge over Giovanni Virginio Schiaparelli. First of all, Giovanni Virginio Schiaparelli was a professional astronomer, but he had never observed Mars before. Furthermore, he was observing from his own observatory, where the atmosphere was less clear than on Madeira Island, and he used an 8-inch reflecting telescope with relatively low magnification. In addition, Giovanni Virginio Schiaparelli only sketched features in a short period of time, refined them later from memory, and produced maps based on his own observations.
Nevertheless, Giovanni Virginio Schiaparelli was the victor. The fact that he was a widely known and respected astronomer in the astronomical community was decisive. Most astronomers found it hard to believe that their favorite astronomer would have drawn an invisible feature on a map. Furthermore, Giovanni Virginio Schiaparelli’s maps were more appealing than Nathaniel Everett Green’s maps because they used the same color scheme as geography. After Giovanni Virginio Schiaparelli reported several more observations of canals, other astronomers began to report their existence, and more and more canals appeared on maps of Mars.
“Giovanni Virginio Schiaparelli’s canal theory influenced popular culture in many ways. Novels and plays published at the time suggested that Mars had a highly developed civilization and that a collision with Earth was inevitable. This atmosphere directly influenced the creation of H.G. Wells’ later novel The War of the Worlds. The novel depicts Martians invading Earth, and is an example of how scientific discoveries can capture the public’s imagination.
In addition, some scientists who support the canal theory have argued that the phenomenon cannot be natural and is the result of Martian handiwork. This argument gained more credibility when they raised the possibility that the Martian canals were not just features, but complex irrigation systems or transportation routes. It was against this backdrop that Percival Lowell, a wealthy American businessman and astronomer, became convinced of the existence of intelligent life on Mars that built the canals, and in 1894 he founded the famous Lowell Observatory in Flagstaff, Arizona. From this observatory, Percival Lowell attempted to make more precise observations of the Martian canals, which gave the Mars canal hypothesis even more attention.
Once an authority is known to have discovered something, it’s not easy to prove that it doesn’t exist. Furthermore, the atmosphere of the time, where other conditions were more important than the performance of the telescope as a measure of the reliability of an observation, made it difficult for these errors to be corrected. Larger, better-performing telescopes often failed to see the canal. Surprisingly, advocates of the canal hypothesis used to explain this away by saying that the high magnification of large telescopes made them more distorted in certain atmospheric conditions, and therefore less resolving than smaller telescopes.
Eventually, as telescope technology improved dramatically in the early 20th century and our scientific understanding of Mars deepened, the canal hypothesis slowly lost its power. However, Giovanni Virginio Schiaparelli and the observations of those who followed him occupy an important place in the early history of Mars research, and it is undeniable that their work contributed greatly to subsequent space exploration and the development of planetary science.
