For Mars observers, 1877 was a special year. The Sun and Mars aligned on opposite sides of the Earth (a phenomenon called “opposition”), while Mars came closest to the Sun in its orbit. This “perihelic opposition,” where Mars appeared at its biggest and brightest phase, gave astronomers the perfect opportunity to study the planet. During this period, an Italian astronomer started mapping the surface of Mars. He was the director of the Brera observatory (in Milan, Italy), and his name was Giovanni Virginio Schiaparelli.
Schiaparelli called the light-and dark-coloured areas on the Martian surface “continents” and “seas,” respectively, and the inter-connected lines he saw through his telescope, “canali.” There were almost 40 such canali on his map, and he named them after well-known rivers on the Earth.
“Canali” was an Italian word that meant “channels” or “grooves,” features that could be natural to a planet’s topography. However, when “canali” was translated to English, it became “canals,” meaning artificial water-ways! This led many to imagine there were intelligent beings on Mars who had constructed these magnificent 40-odd “canals!”
Though most astronomers of those times could not spot Schiaparelli’s canali, it remained a hotly-debated topic in academic circles, until proof emerged that the lines Schiaparelli saw were optical illusions. Nevertheless, the concept of intelligent life on Mars was immensely popular, and continued to inspire countless works of science fiction.
Picture Credit : Google
