Mars - Rijksmuseum public domain dedication

In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, it was believed that there were canals on Mars. These were a network of long straight lines in the equatorial regions from 60° N. to 60° S. Lat. on the planet Mars observed by astronomers using early telescopes. They were first described by the Italian astronomer Giovanni Schiaparelli during the opposition of 1877, and confirmed by later observers. Schiaparelli called these canali, which was translated into English as "canals". The Irish astronomer Charles E. Burton made sketches of the lines, the American Percival Lowell, who founded the Lowell Observatory in 1894, made the most committed speculations on the subject. Lowell almost single-handedly popularized the notion of the canals as proof that the planet once sustained intelligent life. His drawings of the canals look like Italian Futurist masterworks or the spacey doodles of Joan Miró.