Martian Illusions Robert Falcon Scott and Robert Peary

Home , Dollfus (crater), Giovanni Schiaparelli, Horowitz (crater), Martian, Terby (crater)

COMMENT BOOKS & ARTS

l most observers simply published sketches P s / of what they had seen. In 1878, English aay

W astronomer Nathaniel Green also published a Mercator map. Green’s map was ravens subtly shaded and lacked canals, whereas van the features of Schiaparelli’s were crisply D. defined. Owing to its clarity, Schiaparelli’s map became accepted, as were his Mediter- ranean names for Martian landmarks. Another factor in the acceptance of the canals was the superior observations claimed by those who promoted the canal idea. Lowell scorned observing conditions in Europe and the eastern United States, preferring to do his work in the western state of Arizona, with its mountains, dry air, isolation and environ- mental purity. He capitalized on contemporary enthusiasm for the wilderness, claiming Giovanni Schiaparelli’s map of linear ‘canals’ on Mars sparked a debate that lasted for more than 80 years. that mountains were places of transcendence and divinity, sites of purity and vision. The ASTRONOMY view of astronomers as explorers conquering mountains and undergoing hardships for the cause of science was promoted, and compari- sons were made with the polar expeditions of Martian illusions Robert Falcon Scott and Robert Peary. Most sensational was Lowell’s proposal that The Mars canal controversy is a reminder to be cautious the canals were irrigation channels built by when interpreting alien worlds, notes Michael Carr. intelligent life, an idea that captivated public attention and provoked disagreement among scientists and commentators. By the 1890s, resent-day Mars is dry, cold and maps showed Mars’s Mars was widely viewed as a vast desert, and inhospitable, yet we know from surface criss-crossed its habitability was argued in that context. The rovers and orbiting satellites that it by a spider-web pat- most prominent debaters were Lowell and Phas a rich geological and climate history. tern of canals. British biologist Alfred Russel Wallace. Past conditions may even have been benign The US astronomer Wallace claimed that the biological condi- enough to support forms of life. The possi- Percival Lowell added tions necessary for life were not met on Mars. bility of life on Mars is, of course, not a new 116 new canals to He noted that temperatures were unlikely to idea. In the late nineteenth and early twen- Schiaparelli’s map, and be warmer than on the Moon, and that there tieth century, the public was captivated by forcefully argued in seemed to be little water. Lowell acknowl- reports of canals on Mars, supposedly built highly publicized talks, edged that conditions were harsh but held by an advanced civilization in response to Geographies of books and magazine the view that they were not severe enough to a desiccating planet. Mars: Seeing and articles that the canals kill off all life. If one accepts Lowell’s maps and Knowing the Red Maria Lane’s meticulously researched Planet were built by intelligent their clearly artificial patterns as represent- Geographies of Mars describes the canal con- K. Maria D. lane beings. This ‘sensation’ ing the truth, then his conclusions had some troversy. She explains the intellectual and University of Chicago sputtered out after 1910 logic. But it is still a puzzle as to why Lowell social factors that fed into the canal concept Press: 2010. 266 pp. as better photographs and his followers became so convinced that and its broad acceptance. The view of Mars $45 of Mars failed to reveal they could see the spider-web patterns. Lane as an “arid dying, irrigated world peopled by the features. Neverthe- suggests that the inhabited Mars theory was unfathomably advanced beings” grew from less, the canal idea died hard. also tied to the perceived objectivity of maps. the geopolitics of European imperialism and In 1961, French astronomer Audouin When that objectivity faltered with the acqui- US expansionism, Lane argues. Modern Mars Dollfus published drawings showing canals, sition of better photography, so did belief in is not discussed. and in 1964, US astronomer Earl Slipher pub- intelligent Martians. The basic story is familiar. Following the lished photographs that he claimed removed Lane does not discuss the contemporary close opposition of Mars to Earth in 1877, any doubt about the canals’ existence. Linear implications of this saga. An obvious analogy Italian astronomer Giovanni Schiaparelli features were even portrayed on some of the is the ‘Face on Mars’ controversy, in which a published a cylindrical-projection (Merca- charts that my colleagues and I used in 1971 face-shaped hill seen in a poor-resolution tor) map of the red planet’s surface. It showed during NASA’s Mariner 9 Mars mission. image taken by the Viking 1 orbiter in 1976 numerous linear features, which he termed How did this come about? Lane suggests was interpreted by some as evidence of an canali, that did not appear on other portray- that presenting the canals in cartographic advanced civilization. Later, when images als. The reality of the lineaments was initially form gave them authority. The maps made of much higher resolution showed that the questioned, mainly by British astronomers. implicit claims about hill was not face-shaped at all, a government But after their independent confirmation the surface of Mars, Nature.com conspiracy was invoked. Similarly, isolated in 1886 by the European observers François conveying certainty For a review of Paul hills have been interpreted as pyramids and Terby and Henri Perrotin, there was an explo- that the same features Davies’s book on the surface streaks as runways. sion of canal sightings. By the end of the would appear in the search for alien life: Lane criticizes the process of naming fea- nineteenth century, most of the published same place. Initially, go.nature.com/milnuy tures on the nineteenth-century Mars maps as

nationalistic manoeuvring. The astronomical exploration programme. Discoveries and Horowitz cautioned that the seductive idea community today is sensitive to this issue; for their implications are kept confidential and that life could have started on Mars means example, large river channels are now named announced with great fanfare at press confer- we should take care in interpreting new find- using the word for Mars or star in various ences before being presented and challenged ings and presenting them to the public. Lane’s languages, and small craters are named after at scientific meetings. As a consequence, a book reminds us that is still good advice. ■ towns and villages from across the globe. more sensational interpretation of a newly Professional astronomers have criticized discovered feature can get the most attention, Michael Carr is a planetary scientist with Lowell for his cultivation of the media. Some irrespective of its merit. the US Geological Survey, Menlo Park, planetary scientists today are similarly uneasy After the Viking Mars landers failed to California, USA. about the part that publicity plays in the Mars detect life in the late 1970s, geneticist Norman e-mail: [email protected]

SCULPTURE The brain in a nutshell Martin Kemp explains the resonances of Pascale Pollier’s autopsy-inspired sculpture.

edicine has long used visual Picturing Science from experience”; art- alis

C Riverside Gallery, i representation in ambitious science, as balancing D e Richmond, UK.

M ways. This is particularly true if the properties of the _ Until 26 February M Mwe include the illustrated herbals inspired two sides of the brain; 2011.

/arte by the great five-volume encyclopaedia by and connection, as M o

C Dioscorides (ad 40–90). Because art has the need to see the big, linked-up picture. e. M . traditionally centred on issues of human Her modestly sized, elaborate and detailed B e

W existence, medicine has also inspired many construction does not illustrate an autopsy, ://

P artists. rather its making is framed by Gelb’s three htt Recent works based on medical themes principles. Her artwork invites us to read have tended to use metaphor and allusion meaning into the conjunction of objects. rather than direct illustration. A striking Faced with an image as powerful as that of example is provided by Belgian biomedical a brain removed from its bony container, artist and poet Pascale Pollier, in a sculp- we can take up her invitation. ture currently on show in the exhibition But why the walnut? It clearly exploits the Picturing Science at the Riverside Gallery visual resonance between a furrowed walnut in Richmond, near London. plucked whole from its halved shell and the Her intense piece is enigmatically entitled wrinkled configuration of the brain. It also Autopsy in a Nutshell. A bell jar, into which refers to the ancient and cross-cultural idea two coils of wire enter, contains a magnifying of the microcosm and macrocosm, which glass, two light-emitting diodes and a jointed highlights similarities of form and function stand with two sprung clamps. The beaks of across every scale in nature and the wider the clamps grip a small model of the human Universe. Old herbal medicine in both West- brain and half of a walnut shell, the inside ern and Eastern cultures used this doctrine of which has been minutely remodelled to to help determine the source of treatments. match the inside of a cranium. A herb or fruit that resembles a human organ As the title suggests, it was inspired by was seen as potentially efficacious for treat- Pollier’s witnessing of an autopsy. The first ing a disease of that organ. version of the piece was commissioned by Before we smile patronizingly at such Belgian learning expert Bernard Lernout, a ancient mysticism, it is curious to note that great aficionado of Leonardo da Vinci and walnuts could have an effect on some ageing a fan of Michael Gelb’s historically eccen- disorders of the brain. The late James Joseph tric but creatively ingenious book, How to and his team at Tufts University in Boston, Think Like Leonardo da Vinci (Delacorte Massachusetts, reported in the British Jour- Press, 1998). Lernout directed Pollier to nal of Nutrition in 2009 that a diet including Gelb’s seven Leonardesque “principles”: walnuts seemed to improve cognitive func- curiosity (curiosità), demonstration tion in ageing rats. (dimostrazione), sensation (sensazione), As happens in the best scientifically orien- smokiness or ambiguity (sfumato, a layered tated artworks, a visual starting point opens paint effect), art-science (arte/scienza), up a range of associations across historical embodiment (corporalità) and the connec- and contemporary practice. ■ tions between things (connessione). Autopsy in a Nutshell (2006) exploits more than Pollier picked up on three of these: dem- the visual similarity between the brain and a Martin Kemp is emeritus professor of the onstration, defined by Gelb as “learning walnut, as revealed on closer inspection (bottom). history of art at the University of Oxford, UK.