The Sirens of Mars

by Sarah Stewart Johnson

  EVEN BETTER PHOTOGRAPHS Lane, “Mapping the Mars Canal Mania,” pp. 198–211; Simon Newcomb, “The Optical and Psychological Principles Involved in the Interpretation of the So-Called Canals of Mars,” Astrophysical Journal, 26:1 (1907), pp. 1–17.

  THE MUCH-HYPED EXPEDITION WAS David Peck Todd, “The Lowell Expedition to the Andes,” Popular Astronomy, 15 (1907), pp. 551–553; William Sheehan and Anthony Misch, “The Great Mars Chase of 1907,” Sky & Telescope (November 2007), pp. 20–24.

  IN THE OPEN AIR No dome was needed, for it hardly ever rained.

  SOME SEVENTY KILOMETERS INLAND Hilmar W. Duerbeck, “National and International Astronomical Activities in Chile 1849–2002.” In Interplay of Periodic, Cyclic and Stochastic Variability in Selected Areas of the H-R Diagram, 292 (2003), pp. 3–20.

  THE CENTURY MAGAZINE At the end of the expedition, Lowell and Todd descended into mutual vituperations as each claimed to have publication rights to details of the expedition. Legal action was threatened. In the end, Todd published an article in Cosmopolitan, but Lowell won exclusive rights to publication of the images. See: Percival Lowell, “New Photographs of Mars: Taken by the Astronomical Expedition to the Andes and Now First Published,” The Century Magazine, 75 (1907), pp. 303–311; E. C. Slipher, “Photographing Mars,” The Century Magazine, 75 (1907), p. 312; K. Maria D. Lane, Geographies of Mars: Seeing and Knowing the Red Planet. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2011), pp. 118–120.

  THE DISCLAIMER Lane, “Mapping the Mars Canal Mania,” pp. 198–211.

  “[THE CANALS] ARE THERE ” Lowell, “New photographs of Mars,” The Century Magazine, pp. 303–311.

  LAUNCHED AN ATTACK Alfred Russel Wallace, Is Mars Habitable? A Critical Examination of Professor Percival Lowell’s Book “Mars and Its Canals,” with an Alternate Explanation (London: Macmillan and Co., Ltd., 1907), pp. 55–77.

  THE GRECO-FRENCH ASTRONOMER EUGÈNE ANTONIADI Antoniadi was an exceptionally skillful artist as well as an astronomer, who had worked since the 1890s with Flammarion at the latter’s observatory at Juvisy (near Paris). He fell out with Flammarion—both were very strong personalities—and married a Greek woman with independent means in 1902. He pursued interests other than astronomy for several years, including the production of a three-volume study, in Greek, of the Hagia Sophia in Istanbul, through which he honed his artistic skills. He also took up chess with a passion and eventually became a near grand master. Using the “Grande Lunette” at the Meudon Observatory, near Paris (then and still the largest refractor in Europe), Antoniadi saw not canals but “a vast and incredible amount of detail held steadily, all natural and logical, irregular and chequered, from which geometry was conspicuous by its complete absence.” Lowell, of course, did not accept this verdict and argued that Antoniadi, whom he called “a man without knowledge of how to observe,” had been tricked by atmospheric effects, which had blurred the actual lines present on the surface, making them appear irregular and discontinuous. Sheehan and O’Meara, Mars: The Lure of the Red Planet, pp. 155–181.

  “NATURAL AGENCIES OF” Lane, “Mapping the Mars Canal Mania,” pp. 198–211; E. M. Antoniadi, “On the Possibility of Explaining on a Geomorphic Basis the Phenomena Presented by the Planet Mars,” Journal of the British Astronomical Association, 20:2 (1909), p. 93.

  THE PIONEERING PSYCHOLOGISTS For more on the psychology of planetary perception, see Chapter 14, “A Stately Pleasure Dome,” in William Sheehan, Planets and Perception: Telescopic Views and Interpretations, 1609–1909 (University of Arizona Press, 1988).

  THEORY OF SPECIAL RELATIVITY Albert Einstein, “Zur Elektrodynamik bewegter Körper,” Annalen der Physik, 322, no. 10 (1905), pp. 891–921.

  TO A BACKWATER Much of the useful work done during the interwar years was done by amateurs.

  “WARMTH OF HIS FIRE” Leonard, Percival Lowell, An Afterglow, p. 42.

  “ ‘ LIGHT THAT SHIFTS’ ” This is a line from “To the True Romance,” a poem by Rudyard Kipling.

  SOUTH AFRICA Those expeditions, sponsored by the National Geographic Society to take advantage of the planet’s higher elevation above the horizon, took place in 1939 and 1954.

  ONE HUNDRED THOUSAND IMAGES William Sheehan, The Planet Mars, p. 146.

  IN 1962 The last opposition Slipher photographed was a year later, in 1963. He died in 1964, a few months before Mariner 4 set out for the Red Planet.

  “A VAST COLLECTION” Earl Slipher, The Photographic Story of Mars (Cambridge, Mass.: Sky Pub. Corp., 1962).

  “SO-CALLED ‘CANALS’ ” Peter M. Millman, This Universe of Space (Toronto: Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, 1961), pp. 26, 28.

  THE BOOK OF MARS Samuel Glasstone, The Book of Mars (Washington, D.C.: Scientific and Technical Information Division, Office of Technology Utilization, NASA, 1968), p. 126.

  STRUGGLED TO CORRELATE One planetary scientist remarked that the Mariner 4 images were like staring through binoculars at the wrinkled skin of an elephant. Mariner 6 and 7 were designed to cover this “missing middle,” helping to bridge the gap and allow for a reliable interpretation of the close-up images of the Martian surface. Stewart A. Collins, The Mariner 6 and 7 Pictures of Mars (Pasadena, Calif.: NASA JPL, 1971), pp. 24–25.

  NASA PRESS TEAM “Press Kit, Mariner Mars ’69,” NASA (Feb. 14, 1969).

  BEGAN A ROUTINE TEST PROCEDURE Kay Grinter, “One small step on the Moon, one giant footprint on Mars,” Spaceport News (March 26, 2004); DNews, “The Brave Story of Mars’ McClure-Beverlin Escarpment,” Seeker (March 3, 2014); James H. Wilson, “Two over Mars—Mariner 6 and Mariner 7, February–August 1969” (1970), p. 13; John Casani, personal interview by Sarah Johnson (Pasadena, Calif., Aug. 6, 2015).

  TWO MEMBERS The members of the crew were Bill McClure and Jack Beverlin; in 2014, the McClure-Beverlin Escarpment on Mars was informally named in their honor.

  THE TELEPHOTO SHUTTERS Collins, The Mariner 6 and 7 Pictures of Mars, p. 24.

  SEEMED EVIDENT THAT COPRATES In Mariner 7 frames 7F69 and 7F70, the classical feature Coprates, named after an ancient Persian river, appeared as a collection of dark dots, leading to the conclusion that “the ‘canal’ Coprates can now be identified as a sequence of separate dark features.” See: Collins, The Mariner 6 and 7 Pictures of Mars, p. 58. Yet a different view emerged with the much higher resolution imaging from Mariner 9. In fact, the newly discovered Coprates Chasma, a canyon structure and part of Valles Marineris, was continuous and relatively linear. “With the exception of the extraordinary canyon that appears to coincide with the rather stubby ‘canal’ Coprates, no other clear-cut features have been found to account for the system of canals reported by many observers.” See: William K. Hartmann and Odell Raper, The New Mars: The Discoveries of Mariner 9 (Washington, D.C.: NASA Office of Space Science, 1974), p. 63.

  A “LUMP” Collins, The Mariner 6 and 7 Pictures of Mars, p. 65.

  W-SHAPED CLOUDS Ibid., p.59.

  CRISP FALL DAYS Ibid., p. 20.

  20 PERCENT OF THE MARTIAN SURFACE Ibid., p. 24.

  ESTABLISH THE MARTIAN GEOID “Press Kit, Project: Mariner 9,” NASA (Oct. 22, 1971).

  MARINER 8 WOULD MAP Norman Haynes, personal interview by Sarah Johnson (Pasadena, Calif., Aug. 6, 2016).

  BLASTED OFF ON MAY 8 The launch date was 01:11:02 UTC on May 9 (late on May 8 in the United States); John Noble Wilford, “Mariner 8’s Rocket Fails After Lift-off, Dooming Mars Trip,” The New York Times (May 9, 1971).

  MAROONING THE SPACECRAFT “Kosmos 419,” NASA Science Solar System Exploration (Jan. 26, 2018).

  EIGHT-DIGIT CODE Asif A. Siddiqi, Deep Space Chronicle: A Chronology of Deep Space and Planetary Probes 1958–2000, Monographs in Aerospace History, no. 24 (2017) p. 86.

  SUNFLOWER SEED Simulations indicated that it was “an integrated circuit chip one twentieth of an inch square” that failed; “
Mariner I Assigned New Mission,” NASA JPL (May 26, 1971).

  A FAULTY DIODE Ibid.

  Chapter 3: Red Smoke

  AMONG THE FIRST Charles F. Capen and Leonard J. Martin, “The Developing Stages of the Martian Yellow Storm of 1971,” Lowell Observatory Bulletin, no. 157 (Nov. 30, 1971), p. 211. At the much-anticipated opposition of Mars of 1956, when the planet came within 56 million kilometers of Earth, a “Great Dust Storm” encircled the planet. Though dust clouds had been common, the scale of this dust storm took astronomers by surprise. Generally, it was regarded as rather anomalous, though during early 1971, Chick Capen, an astronomer at the Lowell Observatory’s Planetary Research Center, predicted that another such event was likely to occur that year—because in 1971, Mars’s closest approach to Earth would happen very near to the time of its perihelion passage, when it was most strongly heated by the sun. By late September and early October, amateur and professional astronomers around the world were observing the dust clouds.

  SMOOTH, LACQUERED CLOUD Capen and Martin, “The Developing Stages of the Martian Yellow Storm of 1971,” p. 214.

  “A BILLIARD BALL” Norman Haynes, personal interview by Sarah Johnson (Pasadena, Calif., Aug. 6, 2016).

  REPROGRAMMED THE COMPUTER SYSTEM JPL installed a computer with reprogrammable memory on the Mariner 6 and 7 missions as well. It was tested in flight, but it wasn’t used for anything critical during the mission. The Mariner 9 spacecraft employed a similar design to the Mariner 6 and 7 spacecraft design but with a modified tape recorder with higher capacity. The reprogrammable memory on Mariner 6 and 7 was 128 words; for Mariner 9, it was expanded to 512 words, enough to program the sequence of science observations (varying the orbital geometry and viewing conditions) for each orbit.

  IMPENETRABLE DUST CLOUDS V. G. Perminov, “The Difficult Road to Mars: A Brief History of Mars Exploration in the Soviet Union” (Washington, D.C.: Monographs in Aerospace History, no. 15, 1999), p. 59. The Soviets didn’t have the same luxury of waiting out the storm, as their software was not capable of remote reprogramming.

  SMALL TETHERED ROBOT Amy Shira Teitel, “The Soviet Rovers That Died on Mars,” Discover (July 20, 2017).

  SUNLIGHT WARMED THE SURFACE Caleb A. Scharf, “The Great Martian Storm of ’71,” Scientific American (Oct. 21, 2013).

  JSC-MARS-1A Carlton C. Allen, et al., “JSC-Mars-1: Martian Regolith Simulant,” Lunar and Planetary Science Conference, 28 (1997).

  IN THE SADDLE Inge Loes ten Kate, “Organics on Mars Laboratory Studies of Organic Material Under Simulated Martian Conditions,” Doctoral thesis, Leiden University (2006) p. 76.

  AS FINE AS TALCUM POWDER Atmospheric dust particles have been estimated to be approximately 3 µm in diameter. M. T. Lemmon, et al., “Atmospheric Imaging Results from the Mars Exploration Rovers: Spirit and Opportunity,” Science, 306, no. 5,702 (2004), p. 1,753.

  “WAVE OF DARKENING” Sheehan and O’Meara, Mars: The Lure of the Red Planet, p. 354; Caleb A. Scharf, “Mars and the Wave of Darkening,” Scientific American (Aug. 9, 2018).

  “TOUCH OF MOSS GREEN” Gerard P. Kuiper, “Visual Observations of Mars, 1956,” The Astrophysical Journal, 125 (1957), p. 307. Even though none of the diagnostic spectral features of chlorophyll were seen, a Soviet scientist named Gavriil Tikhov then showed that chlorophyll-absorption bands can extend and even disappear in tundra conditions, particularly where oxygen is limited.

  “THIS EVIDENCE” William M. Sinton, “Spectroscopic Evidence for Vegetation on Mars,” Astrophysical Journal, 126 (1957), p. 231; Sinton, “Further Evidence of Vegetation on Mars,” Science, 130, no. 3,384 (1959), pp. 1,234–1,237; Steven J. Dick, Life on Other Worlds: The 20th-Century Extraterrestrial Life Debate (Cambridge University Press, 2001), p. 51.

  BY 1962 The French colleague was Jean-Henri Focas. “Observations of Mars Made in 1961 at the Pic Du Midi Observatory,” NASA Technical Report, JPL-TR-32-151 (1962).

  HAD BEEN IMPOSSIBLE William K. Hartmann and Odell Raper, The New Mars: The Discoveries of Mariner 9 (Washington, D.C.: NASA Office of Space Science, 1974), p. 17.

  WERE EVIDENCE OF LIFE “Press Kit: Project: Mariner Mars 1971,” NASA (April 30, 1971).

  WILLIAM PICKERING E. P. Martz, Jr., “Professor William Henry Pickering, 1858–1938, An Appreciation,” Popular Astronomy, 46, no. 456 (June–July 1938), p. 299; Leon Campbell, “William Henry Pickering, 1858–1938,” Publications of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific, 50, no. 294 (1938), pp. 122–125.

  FIRST RECREATIONAL GUIDE William Henry Pickering, Guide to the Mt. Washington Range (Boston: A. Williams, 1882).

  AND ADVICE ABOUT Ibid., p. 10.

  “ABOVE THE TREE-LINE” Ibid., p. 11.

  PREFERRED WILD PLACES As an astronomer, Pickering was very involved in scouting favorable locations in which to set up observatories. In 1889, he was the first person to test the suitability of Mount Wilson in California for astronomical observations. In the decades that followed, Mount Wilson Observatory became one of the most famous observatories in the world and the birthplace of modern observational cosmology (see “Our Story,” Mount Wilson Observatory, www.mtwilson.edu).

  “DARWIN’S BULLDOG” Paul White, Thomas Huxley: Making the “Man of Science” (Cambridge University Press, 2003).

  “GOOD SEEING” William H. Pickering, Mars (Boston: Richard G. Badger, 1921), p. 132.

  ELECTRODYNAMICS OR PHYSIOLOGY Kristina Maria Doyle Lane, “Imaginative Geographies of Mars: The Science and Significance of the Red Planet, 1877–1910,” doctoral thesis, University of Texas at Austin (2006) p. 90; William H. Pickering, “The Planet Mars,” Technical World Magazine (1906), pp. 463–464.

  MANY ALTERNATIVE THEORIES Pickering had lots of ideas about everything. In contrast to Lowell, who once his mind was made up about something stuck to it without wavering, Pickering seemed to have been only lightly attached to any of his own ideas. For more on his theories of life on Mars, see William H. Pickering, “Report on Mars, No. 37: What I Believe About Mars,” Popular Astronomy, 34 (1926), pp. 482–491.

  WERE THEMSELVES VEGETATION David Bressan, “The Earth-like Mars,” Scientific American, 14 (Aug. 2012).

  NATURALLY FORMED CRACKS Pickering, “Report on Mars, No. 37,” Popular Astronomy, pp. 482–491.

  PASTURES FOR CATTLE Pickering, Mars, pp. 149–150.

  “MORE OR LESS CONTINUOUS” Ibid., p. 150.

  ONE-STORY PLANTATION Howard Plotkin, “William H. Pickering in Jamaica: The Founding of Woodlawn and Studies of Mars,” Journal for the History of Astronomy, xxiv (1993), p. 109; Philip M. Sadler, “William Pickering’s Search for a Planet Beyond Neptune,” Journal for the History of Astronomy, 21, no. 1 (Feb. 1990), pp. 59–60.

  “WHOOP ABOUT THE STARS” Plotkin, “William H. Pickering in Jamaica,” Journal for the History of Astronomy, p. 111.

  “THE ENORMOUS SIZE” William H. Pickering, “Island Universes and the Origin of the Solar System,” The Observatory, 47 (1924), p. 56.

  “HAD IT NOT BEEN SETTLED” Pickering, Mars, pp. 156–157.

  CABLE HIS REPORTS Sadler, “William Pickering’s Search for a Planet Beyond Neptune,” Journal for the History of Astronomy, p. 60; E. P. Martz, Jr., “Pilgrimage to a Tropical Observatory,” Popular Astronomy, 45 (1937), pp. 419–428.

  “NOT FORTUNATE ENOUGH” William H. Pickering, “Monthly Report on Mars—No. 1,” Popular Astronomy, 22 (1914), p. 1.

  FOR YEARS In total, there were forty-four reports, published between 1913 and 1930. Martz, “Professor William Henry Pickering,” Popular Astronomy, p. 301.

  PENCIL SKETCHES Pickering, “Instrument Readings, Notes, and Landscape Sketches, 1891–1892,” Papers of William Henry Pickering, 1870–1907 (Harvard University Archives, HUG 1691, HUG 1691.65).

  SHADES OF SIENNA Pickering, Mars, p. 28.

  “MUST REIGN SUPREME” Pickering,
quoted in Sadler, “William Pickering’s Search for a Planet Beyond Neptune,” Journal for the History of Astronomy, p. 60.

  “IN ABEYANCE” Pickering, “Monthly Report on Mars—No. 4,” Popular Astronomy, 22 (1914), p. 228.

  BLUE-TINTED BAYS Pickering, “Monthly Report on Mars—No. 2,” Popular Astronomy, 22 (1914), p. 96.

  GREENING OF THE SOUTHERN MARIA Ibid., p. 94.

  TORRENTS OF SIBERIA Pickering, “Monthly Report on Mars,” Popular Astronomy, 22 (1914), pp. 3–4.

  ABOVE WESTERN BOLIVIA Ibid., p. 4.

  STIPPLED WITH HOARFROST Pickering, “Monthly Report on Mars—No. 4,” Popular Astronomy, p. 224.

  “SNOWED UNDER” Pickering, “Monthly Report on Mars.—No. 2,” Popular Astronomy, p. 92.

  DEPTH OF SEVERAL METERS Ibid., p. 99.

  WITH VACUUM THERMOCOUPLES While the original experiments measured planetary radiation as percentages of the total radiation, some researchers converted those results into thermometric degrees, suggesting more accuracy than justified. See: Steven J. Dick, Life on Other Worlds: The 20th-Century Extraterrestrial Life Debate (Cambridge University Press, 2001), pp. 45–47; W. W. Coblentz, “Thermocouple Measurements of Stellar and Planetary Radiation,” Popular Astronomy, 31 (1923), pp. 105–121.

  “GRANDEUR AND LONELINESS” Pickering, Guide to the Mt. Washington Range, p. 11.

  A COMMONLY HELD BELIEF In part, this was due to the fact that observers failed to detect any irregularities and notches along the terminator on Mars, such as are visible on the moon (the presence of dust in the atmosphere largely explains this smoothness).

  FINAL VEGETATION THEORY It should be noted that Pickering maintained an open mind as to higher life-forms. In his thirty-seventh report, Pickering wrote: “The fourth explanation for the canals is the one to which I definitely adhere for the transfer of water from pole to pole, and back again. It involves no artificial aid whatsoever, but I am nevertheless far from denying the possibility of the existence of animal life, and even intelligent animal life upon our neighboring planet.” Pickering, “Monthly Report on Mars—No. 37: What I Believe About Mars,” Popular Astronomy, 34 (1926), p. 484.