Mars Channels

Map of Mars by Giovanni Schiaparelli.

Mars channels are lines that several astronomers have believed to see on the surface of the planet Mars. Almost from the outset, telescopic observations had shown that on the surface of Mars were large bright yellowish regions, called "deserts", which covered three quarters of the planet's ground.

In 1877, the Italian astronomer Schiaparelli observed that on these regions were rectilinear formations of dark color; were given the name of "channels". Making observations of Mars between 1895 and 1908, the American astronomer Percival Lowell, a researcher of great prestige in the world of science, came to the conclusion that the canals had been constructed by intelligent beings to carry the water, which was scarce on the surface Martian, from the polar ice caps to the desert regions. However, other and better observations made with more powerful telescopes by José Comas y Solá and Eugène Antoniadi also in the early twentieth century showed that, although there were indeed some apparently more or less linear landforms on the Martian surface ( which corresponded to the so-called Lowell channels), did not in any way possess the remarkable characteristics which denoted artificial construction described by him. The "artificial channels" of the American astronomer had their origin in an optical effect produced by the inevitable imperfections of the lenses of the telescopes of that time, coupled with the pareidolia

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