Astronomy 2021A/B Lecture Notes - Lecture 7: Magnetite, Giovanni Schiaparelli, 40 Minutes

• School: Western University
• Department: Astronomy
• Course: Astronomy 2021A/B
• Professor: Chris Racknor

Document Summary

English astronomer william herschel (1738 1822: best known for discovering uranus, noted mars" polar ice caps and discovered its day was 24hrs, 37min long, herschel believed everything in the solar system was inhabited, including the. Italian astronomer giovanni schiaparelli (in 1877) claimed to have seen a network of. Schiaparelli"s work caught the imagination of percival lowell (1855 1916), a harvard graduate: lowell observatory opened 1894 present. Alfred russel wallace (co-discoverer with darwin of evolution by natural selection: proved the canals don"t actually exist. Agathodaemon the canal that lowell thought he saw the most. Nasa sent the mariner 4 spacecraft to mars in 1965: flew within 6000 miles of its surface, showed that mars"s surface had craters, not canals. Measurements of atmospheric pressure and temperature indicated mars was a cold, dry planet, seemingly uninhabitable. Its thin atmosphere and polar caps left open the possibility of the existence of microbes or even some primitive plants or animals.