Over a Century of Speculation Life on Mars Over a Century of Speculation

Mars is so similar to Earth In the late 1700s Sir William Herschel studied Mars, He discovered: that Mars and Earth were tilted at nearly the same angle, which meant that both planets had four different seasons.

that the Martian polar caps grew and shrank as the seasons changed, so he concluded that they were made of snow and ice.

Hershel also concluded Correctly, that Mars had some sort of atmosphere, Incorrectly, identified dark markings on the Martian surface as oceans. All these similarities to Earth made people hope and imagine life on Mars.

Martian Canals In 1877 “Canals” were discovered on Mars. They seemed to change with the seasons A sign of life! Even civilizations! Maps were made of them… Really they were the result of the poor resolution of the available telescopes

Rumors of Life For the next 80 years or so these canals were thought to be real. Even when the Pictures from the Mariner missions of the 1960’s showed that the ‘canals’ did not exist many were by then so convinced that life, even intelligent life was there That they accused the government of a cover-up!

The Face on Mars Rumors of past civilizations on Mars were renewed when a photo shot from the Viking Lander mission seemed to show a mountain sculpted into a face on Mars!

This too proved to be merely a product of poor resolution.

While evidence of civilizations and lush vegetation have proven false. There is still a good chance that there may be or at least once was life there.