OLogy Cards > Mars

Take me to your leader
For hundreds of years, people have been wondering if there is life on other planets. Did you ever hear about Martians? In 1877, Italian astronomer Giovanni Schiaparelli reported seeing many straight lines crisscrossing the planet, which he named "canali," or natural channels. People in English-speaking countries let their imaginations run wild, and began to think that there were manmade canals on Mars. Could there have been little creatures rowing around in boats on these canals? Later, American astronomer Percival Lowell devoted his career to mapping what he believed were a network of irrigation canals on Mars. He thought these "canals" were for bringing water to farms, but his vision of intelligent aliens at work on Mars was proven to be 100 percent incorrect.

Space probes have proved that the "canals" Lowell mapped really don't exist. Some of these surface features were really long channels where water may have flowed across the Martian landscape, but not to farms.