In this blog post, we’ll take a look at how the non-existent Martian canals were accepted as truth by scientists for so long, and the reasons behind the scientific error.
In 1894, claims of highly evolved, intelligent life on Mars gained media attention. These claims were based on a complex network 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. He had plenty 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 his own 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 map, while Giovanni Virginio Schiaparelli’s map showed terrain with a net 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. The popular media and science magazines of the time covered it 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 this was his first time observing Mars. Furthermore, he was observing from his own observatory, where the atmosphere was less clear than on Madeira Island, and he was using an 8-inch reflecting telescope with relatively low magnification. In addition, Giovanni Virginio Schiaparelli only sketched features in a short time and later elaborated on them from memory, and he made maps based on his own observations.
Nevertheless, the victory went to Giovanni Virginio Schiaparelli. 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 an astronomer they admired would have drawn a map of a terrain they couldn’t even see. Furthermore, Giovanni Virginio Schiaparelli’s maps were more appealing than those of Nathaniel Everett Green because they used the same color scheme as geography. After Giovanni Virginio Schiaparelli reported a few more observations of canals, other astronomers began to report their existence, 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 a highly advanced civilization existed on Mars and that a collision with Earth was inevitable. This atmosphere directly influenced the creation of H.G. Wells’s 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 further credence when they raised the possibility that the Martian canals were not just features, but complex irrigation systems or transportation routes. Against this backdrop, 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 famed Lowell Observatory in Flagstaff, Arizona. From this observatory, Percival Lowell attempted to make more precise observations of the Martian canals, which brought the Martian canal hypothesis to even greater prominence.
Once an authority is known to have discovered something, it’s hard to prove that it doesn’t exist. Moreover, in the atmosphere of the time, when other conditions were more important than the performance of the telescope as a measure of the reliability of an observation, it was difficult to correct these errors. 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 resolvable than smaller telescopes.
Eventually, as telescope technology greatly improved and our scientific understanding of Mars deepened in the early 20th century, the canal hypothesis slowly lost steam. However, the observations of Giovanni Virginio Schiaparelli and 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.
