Mars Fever: How an 1877 Error in Translation Led to a Fervent Belief in Intelligent Life on the Red Planet
“Scientists now declare that the many lines and spots on Mars represent...a most wonderful canal system which the inhabitants have constructed for the purposes of irrigation.” - Quote from the Los Angeles Times 1907 It is 1877 and forty-two year old Italian astronomer Giovanni Schiaparelli is preparing to observe the planet Mars through a powerful new refractor telescope that has just been installed at the Brera Observatory in the city of Milan. In a sense, Schiaparelli has been training for this moment for months. To effectively operate the refractor telescope and to accurately observe the Red Planet Schiaparelli needs steady hands and he has abstained for weeks from, “everything that could affect the nervous system, from narcotics to alcohol, but especially from the abuse of coffee,” he later writes, all in an effort to improve his observations. Through the telescope Schiaparelli sees deep trenches, in the form of straight lines, criss-crossing the su...