From the time we first learnt to spot this bright reddish orb in the night skies, Mars has held a special place in our minds. Many ancients named it after their gods of war. Mars as the Roman god of war featured in mythological stories, and Ares (the Greek god of war) is a main character in Homer’s epic poem Iliad, thought to be written in the 8th century BCE.
Works of fiction in more modern times were more concerned with the actual planet itself. Even though many stories were written in the 1800s about voyages to the Red Planet, Mars became a preferred subject of science fiction probably after the Italian astronomer Giovanni Schiaparelli (mistakenly) identified “canali” on Mars in 1877!
When the prominent American astronomer Percival Lowell announced that he had found Martian irrigation canals, and wrote books about life on the planet, he further popularized the idea of Mars being home to intelligent beings.
Many books written in these times were about alien invasions, Martian-Earthling hostilities, and sometimes about a sympathetic, highly advanced race of Martians. This trend continued long after Lowell’s canal theory was proven false.
Later, after the Mariner and Viking missions showed Mars to be a dry and barren planet, the subject of Mars-based stories and novels shifted to the efforts made by humans to shape the planet for habitation.
Picture Credit : Google
