Martian canals

Common card · No. 281678

During the late 19th and early 20th centuries, it was erroneously believed that there were "canals" on the planet Mars. These were a network of long straight lines on Mars, observed by astronomers using early telescopes without photography, that were believed to be engineering works or waterways via the mistranslation of Schiaparelli’s term canali ("channels") into English as “canals.” Modern historians of science widely agree that the Martian canals were a perceptual and linguistic artifact, arising from telescope limitations combined with optical illusions. They were first described by the Italian astronomer Giovanni Schiaparelli during the opposition of 1877, and attested to by later observers. The Irish astronomer Charles E. Burton made some of the earliest drawings of straight-line features on Mars, although his drawings did not match Schiaparelli's. Around the turn of the century there was even speculation that they were engineering works, irrigation canals constructed by a civilization...

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