Mars Madness: Fantasy To Science

Times of India ^ | 1.29.04 | Connie Cass

[ambrose]

Mars Madness: Fantasy To Science [AP ]

By Connie Cass

Washington: Mars has inspired the human imagination for more than a century, generating a parade of little green men and bug-eyed monsters first sparked by the belief that the planet was crisscrossed with alien-made canals.

Today, fantasy has given way to science, with the Spirit rover sending back eerily clear pictures of empty vistas and a president promising that humans will be sent to the Red Planet.

``We do not know where this journey will end. Yet we know this:Human beings are headed into the cosmos,'' President George W. Bush said.

Mars, in particular, has long been calling us. Astronomer Carl Sagan called the planet ``a kind of mythic arena onto which we have projected our earthly hopes and fears.''

``Why so many eager speculations and ardent fantasies about Martians, rather than, say, Saturnians or Plutonians?'' Sagan wrote. For starters, the fourth planet from the sun is not only Earth's neighbor, it's also the planet that most resembles our world. It has a roughly 24-hour day. It has weather and seasons, volcanoes and canyons.

When conditions are right, it is one of the brightest objects in the night sky. Interest in Mars dates back at least to the Babylonians. The ancient Greeks named Mars for their god of war. Galileo was the first to see it through a telescope, in 1609.

But the past century's fascination with Mars can largely be traced to one vigorously promoted error: the mistaken discovery of canals supposedly constructed by intelligent beings.

Italian astronomer Giovanni Schiaparelli announced in 1877 that he had spotted some sort of channels - possibly artificial waterways. Mathematician and amateur astronomer Percival Lowell ran wild with the idea. Lowell, founder of the Lowell Observatory in Flagstaff, Ariz., spent 15 years around the turn of the 20th century peering through his state-of-the art telescope at a hazy red dot with green splotches and white caps at the poles.

``He looks at it night after night, week after week, as long as he can, and he begins to see little straight lines, and they connect the green splotches to the poles,'' said Tom Burns, director of Ohio Wesleyan University's Perkins Observatory. ``He realizes that what he's seeing is without a doubt the most magnificent public works project our solar system has ever known.''

Lowell described Mars as a cold, desert-like planet whose desperate citizens had built hundreds of canals to carry water from melting polar ice caps to farmland.

[thesummerwind]

Lowell described Mars as a cold, desert-like planet whose desperate citizens had built hundreds of canals to carry water from melting polar ice caps to farmland.

Cuckoo!

Send up Al Gore to check that out, just in case Lowell hit it on the nose.

[thesummerwind]

Lowell, founder of the Lowell Observatory in Flagstaff, Ariz., spent 15 years around the turn of the 20th century peering through his state-of-the art telescope

This guy needed a good woman!

[Conspiracy Guy]

Larry the Cable Guy says, "I was seeing a real pretty girl for a while. Then somebody stole my binoculars out of my truck."

CG

[cripplecreek]

``He realizes that what he's seeing is without a doubt the most magnificent public works project our solar system has ever known.''

The really big dig?

[Lazamataz]

This guy needed a good woman!

That's what he was peering at.

[thesummerwind]

ROFL!!!!!!!!

[KellyAdmirer]

``He realizes that what he's seeing is without a doubt the most magnificent public works project our solar system has ever known.''

That is just a plain weird way of describing what one thinks about finding supposed evidence of extraterrestrial life. It's like, if a multicolored saucer landed in Central Park, Katie Couric walked over and said, "Wow, that's so cool, they sure do have cool colors for their spaceships!"

[thesummerwind]

a real pretty girl

Yes, I think pregnant women are beautiful. ;)

My wife is ready to download.

[Conspiracy Guy]

Great! When is she due?

CG

[thesummerwind]

oops!

[thesummerwind]

Great! When is she due?

Oops!

Just kidding........days, just so the Super Bowl is undisturbed! Gotta lay down the law here.

[Conspiracy Guy]

???????????????

[Conspiracy Guy]

First!

[thesummerwind]

third. Hope the third time is the charm. The first two looked like the gardener. Yoi!

[Conspiracy Guy]

I have 2 but they are now 24/daughter and 22/son. I just turned 600 months old on Jan 15, 2004 myself.

Hope this one looks like you unless that is bad!


CG

[thesummerwind]

I just turned 600 months old on Jan 15, 2004 myself.

The big 5-0!!!. You should have told me, I would have baked you a cake!

By the way, tight body, did you get that bulge out of your back pocket yet in that pic? ;)

[Conspiracy Guy]

The dang holster on my right hip, the vest, and photo shoping make me look fat. Check your Freemail

[Conspiracy Guy]

BTW we had a party!

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