Mars Myths
The planet Mars has fascinated skywatchers for centuries, ever since the Red Planet was named for the Roman god of war, a reference to what looked like a blood stained surface. In fact, the red color is caused by oxidation of the iron-rich minerals
on the planet's surface. Mars is covered by rust!
One of the most enduring myths about Mars is that intelligent life could be found there. Oddly enough, this notion began with a simple mistake in translation. When Giovanni Schiaparelli, a nineteenth-century Italian astronomer, described his view of
the planet, he said he saw canali, the Italian word for "channels." This was incorrectly translated as "canals," engineered waterways rather than natural features.
Percival Lowell, an American astronomer, theorized that a Martian civilization had built the canals to carry water from the melting polar ice caps to desert regions of the planet. Lowell spent many years trying to convince others of the truth of his ideas.
More recently, some people have claimed that the visible "face" on the planet is a huge monument left by an ancient civilization, something like Stonehenge or the Egyptian Pyramids. The shadowy form is located in the Cydonia Mensae region in the
northern hemisphere. The Viking 1 and 2 orbiters took photographs of this area, and not surprisingly, no evidence of manufactured structures was found. All planetary scientists agree that the facelike image—like the "Man in the Moon"—is the result of
chance lighting conditions on a natural feature.
Possibly because it is our "next door neighbor," Mars has long been portrayed by mythmakers as a potential threat to Earth. In The War of the Worlds, published in 1898, the English novelist H.G. Wells invented the idea of a Martian invasion of Earth.
Forty years later, Orson Welles broadcast a radio version of the novel and many panicked listeners thought it was a newscast of an actual alien attack.
It is possible that life forms from Mars have been landing on our planet for billions of years. Recent analysis of meteorites from Mars that were found in Antarctica show what some scientists interpret as the fossil remains of tiny bacteria. That's a far cry from the popular myths of a civilization that could build canals and monuments,
and launch an invasion of Earth.
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