The Martian canals, discovered in 1877 by this Italian scientist, have a surprising feature. The fact is that they apparently never existed – despite the fact that, and independently of Schiaparelli, long straight lines on the surface of the red planet were once studied and sketched. One gets the impression that the main purpose of such a “discovery” was the occasion for writing dozens and hundreds of bestselling books on the Martian theme.
How Giovanni Schiaparelli became an astronomer
Giovanni Virginio Schiaparelli came from a family of scientists, and later his niece, Elsa, made the name famous, achieving fame and recognition in the world of high fashion. The future author of the hypothesis of canals on Mars was born in 1835 in the Italian town of Savigliano. According to family tradition, Giovanni sought himself in science – after graduating from the University of Turin with a degree in engineering, he continued his studies, choosing astronomy as his field of interest.
Schiaparelli’s congenital feature – his color-blindness – did not hinder his career development, although his vision problems ultimately reduced the astronomer’s scientific career. The middle of the nineteenth century was a period of special interest in the observation of space and the development of optical technology. The young Schiaparelli went to Berlin and worked there under the guidance of the astronomer Johannes Encke. The next page of his biography was months of service at the Pulkovo Observatory with Otto Struve, a Russian astronomer. After that, in 1860, Schiaparelli returned to Italy and worked ever since at the Brera Observatory in Milan, which he headed a couple of years later.
The young scientist established a connection between the meteoroid streams of the Leonids and Perseids and comets, and discovered the asteroid Hesperia. After installing more powerful equipment, Schiaparelli directed his attention to the planets of the solar system, and primarily Mars. Astronomers in the second half of the 19th century were still heavily dependent on proximity to the space objects under study, so the Italian waited until the great confrontation of 1877, a period when the distance between the Earth and Mars was reduced to a minimum, to make the most important observations.
The scientist prepared himself: he refused everything that could affect his nervous system and affect the accuracy of his observations – he avoided alcohol, sleeping pills, and coffee. 1877 brought sensational results for the time: Schiaparelli discovered a network of lines on the surface of Mars whose origin seemed unknown.
The fashion for canals and for literature about Mars
Schiaparelli saw and recorded extended straight lines on Mars-they formed intricate patterns all the way from 60 degrees north latitude to 60 degrees south latitude. The astronomer put these lines on the map and gave them the name “canals”, noting that their approximate width was about a hundred kilometers. The sensation was created by the inaccuracy of translation: in the English version “canals”, which could be both of natural and artificial origin, turned into unambiguous canals, that is, man-made objects.
Schiaparelli himself neither confirmed nor denied the version that the creation of Martian channels could be the result of someone else’s intelligent activity, at least in the first years after his discovery. Interestingly, the presence of long lines on the surface of the red planet was noticed even earlier, in 1862, by astronomers Angelo Secchi, William Dawes and several others; and after Schiaparelli’s notes Martian channels were observed by a number of astronomers respected in the scientific world.
One of them was Percival Lovell, who went further and expanded the number of channels of Mars to six hundred, suggesting that these structures were created by the inhabitants of the planet to irrigate arid areas of soil with meltwater from the polar caps. Incidentally, the same scientist predicted the discovery of the ninth planet of the solar system and spent many years searching for it. When later, after the death of Percival Lovell, the planet was discovered, it was decided to give it the name “Pluto”, which appeared to encrypt the initials of the astronomer.
Giovanni Schiaparelli himself did not rule out intelligent life on Mars, especially since, according to the data of the time, the neighboring planet also possessed similar conditions, including not only the inclination of its axis, but also the composition of its atmosphere; the presence of liquid water on Mars was also assumed. The association with man-made canals on Earth was also fashionable: the Suez Canal had already been built, the Panama Canal was to connect the waters of the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans, and other large-scale projects for changing the Earth’s water surface were in prospect. And the very idea of brothers on the mind nearby was extremely attractive. The Martian canals became the starting point for writers’ fantasies about life on the fourth planet of the solar system.