AST-1A Lecture Notes - Lecture 21: Flagstaff, Arizona, Mariner 4, Allan Hills 84001
Document Summary
Victorian cartoon of what mars life should look like. The war of the world - by h. g. wells, martian beings that occupy earth. People started looking at mars in 1600"s, telescopes had improved. In 1877, the italian astronomer giovanni schiaparelli reported that he could see thin, faint straight lines connecting various dark regions on mars. He used the term canale to describe the lines. The american percival lowell interpreted this to mean canals built by an intelligent martian species to funnel water from the polar caps to the dry equator. Lowell built an observatory in flagstaff, arizona to study the canals. He popularized the canals in books and lectures. Lowell believed that the features on mars changed with the seasons as crops grew and were harvested. The majority of astronomers could not definitively confirm the canals. They were skeptical of the existence of the canals and felt the claims on intelligent civilizations were exaggerated conjecture.
