Mars In History - 1800’s
The 1800’s was considered as the Canal craze period. When scientist Giovanni Schiaparelli discovered “Canali” in Mars or “Channels”, it was mistakenly translated as canals giving the impression that an intelligent lifeform must have built the canals in Mars.
1809 - Honore Flaugergues discovered dust clouds in Mars and later on, in 1813, noticed that the polar ice caps in Mars melted significanlty during the spring. He concluded the Mars is hotter than Earth.
Wilhelm Beer
1840 - Wilhelm Beer and Johann Von Maedler observed Mars for periods of 759, 1604 and 2234 days and determined that one Martian day is equivalent to 24hrs 37mins and 22.6 seconds. Very close to the accepted 24hrs 37mins and 22.7second Martian rotational day.
William Whewell
1854 - William Whewell wonders about extraterrestrial existence in Mars and concluded that it has green seas and red land.
Syrtis Major
1858 - jesuit monk Angelo Secci created a drawing of Mars and called the SyrtisMajor the “Atlantic Canal“.
Frederik Kaiser
1862 - Frederik Kaiser calculated the rotatinal day of Mars to be 24hrs 37mins and 22.62 seconds.
Richard Anthony Proctor
1867 - A map of Mars with oceans and continents was published by Richard Anthony Proctor. It was also at this time when Pierre Jules Janssen and William Huggins tried to detect water vapor and oxygen in Mars using a spectroscope.
1877 - During the Perihelic Opposition - meaning Mars is at its closest to Earth. Giovanni Schiaparelli drew a map of Mars. He used different terms from history, mythology and terms for hell. Used the term canali to describe the channels on the surface of Mars, which was wrongly translated into canals.
Asaph Hall discovers the 2 moons of Mars and called them Phobos and Deimos.
Edward Emerson Barnard
1894 - Edward Emerson Barnard was observing Mars and found no evidence of a canal.
Percival Lowell
1895 - Percival Lowell published his book Mars
The 1900’s was a time for big breakthroughs in terms of science and exploration. Our continued search for knowledge has led to discoveries that corroborated the findings of scientists of the past. The advancement in technology made us more curious and we were no longer contented with observing the stars and the planets through a telescope, we wanted to fly to the sky and take close-up pictures of Mars and the other neighboring planets. That dawned a new age of discovery and the Mariner series of exploration spacecrafts was born.