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Mars: History of Exploration

Mars: History of Exploration. Geography 494-01 S/07 Dr. Christine M. Rodrigue. Mars: History of Mars Exploration. History of Earth-based Mars exploration The eyeball era Ancient astronomer/astrologers noticed that five stars wandered: astra planeta Mercury Venus Mars Jupiter Saturn.

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Mars: History of Exploration

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  1. Mars: History of Exploration Geography 494-01 S/07 Dr. Christine M. Rodrigue C.M. Rodrigue, 2007 Geography, CSULB

  2. Mars: History of Mars Exploration • History of Earth-based Mars exploration • The eyeball era • Ancient astronomer/astrologers noticed that five stars wandered: astra planeta • Mercury • Venus • Mars • Jupiter • Saturn C.M. Rodrigue, 2007 Geography, CSULB

  3. Mars: History of Mars Exploration • History of Earth-based Mars exploration • The eyeball era • Indians described a Mars retrogation in 3,010 BCE C.M. Rodrigue, 2007 Geography, CSULB

  4. Mars: History of Mars Exploration • History of Earth-based Mars exploration • The eyeball era • Chaldean database: • Enuma Anu Enlil, which date back to 652 BCE and continued until 60 BCE. • Sample entry: "That month, the equivalent for 1 shekel of silver was: barley [something missing] kur; mustard, 3 kur ... At that time, Jupiter was in Scorpio; Venus was in Leo, at the end of the month in Virgo; Saturn was in Pisces; Mercury and Mars, which had set, were not visible." C.M. Rodrigue, 2007 Geography, CSULB

  5. Mars: History of Mars Exploration • History of Earth-based Mars exploration • The eyeball era • Chinese dynastic historians • Interested in planetary conjunctions, including those involving Mars • Trying to correlate with events on Earth • These records go back to the fourth century BCE C.M. Rodrigue, 2007 Geography, CSULB

  6. Mars: History of Mars Exploration • History of Earth-based Mars exploration • The eyeball era • Mayans developed elaborate calendars • Date back from 1800 BCE to the time of Columbus • Heyday was from 250 to 900 CE • Spanish destroyed most of their written records but a few of the priestly codices or handbooks survive • The Dresden Codex includes a "Mars Beast Table" that predicts Mars' motions and retrogations C.M. Rodrigue, 2007 Geography, CSULB

  7. Mars: History of Mars Exploration • History of Earth-based Mars exploration • The eyeball era • Ancient Greeks really bugged by retrogations • Here’s one for Mars for June through November 2003 C.M. Rodrigue, 2007 Geography, CSULB

  8. Mars: History of Mars Exploration • History of Earth-based Mars exploration • The eyeball era • Ancient Greeks try to process the behavior of the planets: • Aristotle (~384-322 BCE) saw an occultation of Mars by the Moon and figured out Mars had to be farther from Earth than the Moon • Aristarchus (~310-230 BCE) developed heliocentric theory of the solar system and that the fixed stars had to be really, really far away • Hipparchus (~190-120 BCE) described the five planets' orbits as "deferents" around the earth • Ptolemy (~90 – 168 CE) added epicycles to handle retrogations • The collapse of Graeco-Roman civilization in the fifth century CE put an end to work on Mars or any other science for a long time: The Dark Ages C.M. Rodrigue, 2007 Geography, CSULB

  9. Mars: History of Mars Exploration • History of Earth-based Mars exploration • The eyeball era • Ptolemy’s epicycles C.M. Rodrigue, 2007 Geography, CSULB

  10. Mars: History of Mars Exploration • History of Earth-based Mars exploration • The eyeball era • Rise of Islam in the 7th century CE rejuvenated Arab culture and work on math and science • Greek and Roman classics were revived and extended • Algebra and the Arabic numerals were developed • Ibn al-Haytham around the 10th century and Nasir ad-Din at-Tusi in the late 13th century revised Ptolemy’s epicycle system to make it better able to handle Mars’ and other planets’ retrogations • These developments brought to Europe, partly due to the Crusades C.M. Rodrigue, 2007 Geography, CSULB

  11. Mars: History of Mars Exploration • History of Earth-based Mars exploration • The eyeball era • Europeans, inspired by rediscovery of the classics and the writings of the Arab scientists got into the swing of empirical science, too • Copernicus in 1543 revives Aristarchus’ heliocentrism: • Earth rotates around a N/S axis • It and the OTHER 5 planets revolve around the Sun in perfect circles • He had to keep Ptolemy’s epicycles to account for retrogations • Tycho Brahe (1546 to 1601), instrument engineer and disciplined observer of the night skies, created databases of his team’s observations and focussed a lot on Mars due to its difficult pattern of motion C.M. Rodrigue, 2007 Geography, CSULB

  12. Mars: History of Mars Exploration • History of Earth-based Mars exploration • The eyeball era • Johannes Kepler • Went to study with Tycho Brahe and they began to fight: Kepler was intrigued by Copernicus’ heliocentric theory and Brahe thought it was nuts • Brahe withheld his database from Kepler as a result, only letting him see the Mars data, which he thought was so difficult that it would keep Kepler out of trouble • Kepler found that the best way to make sense of Mars' orbit was to apply Copernicus' heliocentric theory but relax the assumption about a perfectly circular orbit • There’s speculation that he might actually have offed Brahe in 1601 to get his data! • He publishes his three laws of planetary motion in 1609 C.M. Rodrigue, 2007 Geography, CSULB

  13. Mars: History of Mars Exploration • History of Earth-based Mars exploration • The eyeball era • Kepler’s First Law of Planetary Motion: Planetary orbits are ellipses, not circles, with the Sun at one of the two foci of each ellipse C.M. Rodrigue, 2007 Geography, CSULB

  14. Mars: History of Mars Exploration • History of Earth-based Mars exploration • The eyeball era • Kepler’s Second Law of Planetary Motion: The line connecting the planet to the Sun sweeps out equal areas in equal times C.M. Rodrigue, 2007 Geography, CSULB

  15. Mars: History of Mars Exploration • History of Earth-based Mars exploration • The eyeball era • Kepler’s Third Law of Planetary Motion: The ratio of the squares of two planets’ revolutionary periods is the same as the cubes of their semimajor axes. The period a planet requires to go around the Sun increases rapidly with the radius of its orbit. C.M. Rodrigue, 2007 Geography, CSULB

  16. Mars: History of Mars Exploration • History of Earth-based Mars exploration • The telescope era • Galileo Galilei (1564-1642) • In 1609, he builds and begins using a telescope • He observed Mars in order to test Copernicus’ and Kepler’s predictions that the planets should show phases • His telescope was too primitive, so he honestly reported he couldn’t see Martian phases but that Mars didn’t look perfectly round • For his defense of Copernicus' heliocentric theory against specific orders of the Church, Galileo got into trouble with the Inquisition and was ordered into prison, a sentence later commuted to lifelong house arrest. C.M. Rodrigue, 2007 Geography, CSULB

  17. Mars: History of Mars Exploration • History of Earth-based Mars exploration • The telescope era • Francisco Fontana, Italian astronomer, uses a telescope to observe Mars in 1636 • He can clearly see that Mars was in gibbous phase, as Copernicus, Kepler, and Galileo expected • He makes the first drawings of Mars, in full and gibbous phases C.M. Rodrigue, 2007 Geography, CSULB

  18. Mars: History of Mars Exploration • History of Earth-based Mars exploration • The telescope era • Christiaan Huygens in 1659 got such a good look at Mars: • He sees it rotates around a N/S axis • He figures its day length is very much like Earth’s • He left a few sketches C.M. Rodrigue, 2007 Geography, CSULB

  19. Mars: History of Mars Exploration • History of Earth-based Mars exploration • The telescope era • Jean Dominique Cassini observes bright spots at the poles and dark spots along the equator in the 1660s • In 1672, he and a friend simultaneously observe Mars from different places on Earth and he uses parallax to figure Mars’ distance from Earth • Applying Kepler’s 3rd law, he uses this Mars distance to figure out how far Earth was from the Sun C.M. Rodrigue, 2007 Geography, CSULB

  20. Mars: History of Mars Exploration • History of Earth-based Mars exploration • The telescope era • In 1719, Giacomo Maraldi (Cassini’s nephew), notes changes in the white and dark spots • He infers that Mars must have seasons C.M. Rodrigue, 2007 Geography, CSULB

  21. Mars: History of Mars Exploration • History of Earth-based Mars exploration • The telescope era • In 1786, William Herschel also saw these changes • He was able to determine Mars’ axial tilt at ~25 from the ecliptic, which is the mechanism for seasonality • He figured dark areas were seas and light areas clouds • He thought the polar light spots were thin snow and ice • He saw that faint stars that passed close to Mars were not dimmed, inferring that Mars had a very thin atmosphere C.M. Rodrigue, 2007 Geography, CSULB

  22. Mars: History of Mars Exploration • History of Earth-based Mars exploration • The Geographic Period: Telescopes plus maps • As telescopes improved by leaps and bounds, sketches of Mars did, too • In 1800, Johann Hieronymus Schroeter makes drawings of Mars. C.M. Rodrigue, 2007 Geography, CSULB

  23. Mars: History of Mars Exploration • History of Earth-based Mars exploration • The Geographic Period: Telescopes plus maps • William Beer and Johann H. von Mädler assembled the first real map of Mars in 1840 • They use the first “areographic grid,” which is close to today’s • They also refined Cassini's refinement of Huygens' estimate of the Martian day: 24 hours 37 minutes 22.6 seconds C.M. Rodrigue, 2007 Geography, CSULB

  24. Mars: History of Mars Exploration • History of Earth-based Mars exploration • The Geographic Period: Telescopes plus maps … plus speculation • In 1854, William Whewell speculates that there might be Martian life • He wonders if there are greenish seas and red landscapes C.M. Rodrigue, 2007 Geography, CSULB

  25. Mars: History of Mars Exploration • History of Earth-based Mars exploration • The Geographic Period: Telescopes plus maps … plus speculation • In 1863, Jesuit monk Angelo Secchi draws a map and calls the dark areas “canali” • The dark triangle of Syrtis Major he dubs the “Atlantic Canal” C.M. Rodrigue, 2007 Geography, CSULB

  26. Mars: History of Mars Exploration • History of Earth-based Mars exploration • The Geographic Period: Telescopes plus maps … plus speculation • In 1860, Emmanuel Liais suggests that the dark areas might be vegetation, changing with the seasons • In 1873, Camille Flammarion agrees that Liais might be on to something, adding that maybe the red color itself is the color of the vegetation C.M. Rodrigue, 2007 Geography, CSULB

  27. Mars: History of Mars Exploration • History of Earth-based Mars exploration • The Geographic Period: Telescopes plus maps … plus speculation • In 1867, Richard Anthony Proctor creates a map of Mars • His pinpointing of the prime meridian is the one used today C.M. Rodrigue, 2007 Geography, CSULB

  28. Mars: History of Mars Exploration • History of Earth-based Mars exploration • The Geographic Period: Telescopes plus maps … plus speculation • So, by the mid 1870s, there’s all sorts of exciting speculation about Mars, stimulated by the ever-increasing resolution of telescopes: canali, dark seas, snowy polar caps, vegetation • It was known that the opposition of 1877 was going to be one of the best in decades, and everyone was looking forward to a great viewing opportunity coupled with the great new telescope capacity C.M. Rodrigue, 2007 Geography, CSULB

  29. Mars: History of Mars Exploration • History of Earth-based Mars exploration • The Geographic Period: Telescopes plus maps … plus speculation • 1877 was a great opposition: Asaph Hall discovered the two moons of Mars, Phobos and Deimos (Earth had one, Jupiter had four; therefore, Mars HAD to have two) • He had given up but his wife, Chloe Angeline Stickney Hall, kept after him and he found them. • In gratitude, he named the biggest crater on Phobos for her: Stickney • Interesting areotidbit: Jonathan Swift’s 1726 Gulliver’s Travels had the astronomers of Laputa talk about Mars’ two moons! C.M. Rodrigue, 2007 Geography, CSULB

  30. Mars: History of Mars Exploration • History of Earth-based Mars exploration • The Geographic Period: Telescopes plus maps … plus speculation • The US Naval Observatory Telescope Hall used (still in service) • Phobos’ and Deimos’ orbits C.M. Rodrigue, 2007 Geography, CSULB

  31. Mars: History of Mars Exploration • History of Earth-based Mars exploration • The Geographic Period: Telescopes plus maps • 1877 opposition was the basis of Giovanni Sciaparelli’s maps of the light and dark areas of Mars … and those linear features he called “canali” C.M. Rodrigue, 2007 Geography, CSULB

  32. Mars: History of Mars Exploration • History of Earth-based Mars exploration • The Geographic Period: Telescopes plus maps • Schiaparelli’s map, different projection – brownie point … C.M. Rodrigue, 2007 Geography, CSULB

  33. Mars: History of Mars Exploration • History of Earth-based Mars exploration • The Geographic Period: Telescopes plus maps • 1892 saw some important questions raised: • William Pickering of Harvard was seeing these Schiaparelli channels, too, but he saw one running across "Mare Eruthraeum" : How could a “canal” run across a “sea”? • Edward Emerson Barnard spotted craters on Mars. No-one else paid much attention. He also said he tried and tried to see all these canals and couldn't for the life of him. C.M. Rodrigue, 2007 Geography, CSULB

  34. Mars: History of Mars Exploration • History of Earth-based Mars exploration • The Geographic Period: Telescopes plus maps … plus speculation • 1893: Someone gives Percival Lowell a book about Mars by Camille Flammarian: instant obsession • Unlike most of us who get obsessions, he had $ • He builds and staffs the Lowell Observatory in AZ • In 1902, appointed at MIT as non-resident astronomer • He publishes Mars in 1985, Mars and Its Canals in 1906, and Mars, the Abode of Life in 1908 C.M. Rodrigue, 2007 Geography, CSULB

  35. Mars: History of Mars Exploration • History of Earth-based Mars exploration • The Geographic Period: Telescopes plus maps … plus speculation • Lowell publishes maps, with canals aplenty C.M. Rodrigue, 2007 Geography, CSULB

  36. Mars: History of Mars Exploration • History of Earth-based Mars exploration • The Geographic Period: Telescopes plus maps … plus speculation • Lowell encounters resistance from the increasingly skeptical scientific community • Alfred Russell Wallace measured the light spectra from Mars and concluded that the place was really, really cold, about -35° F, so Lowell's claim of water canals had to be "all wet” • Svante Arrhenius argued in 1912 that Mars might be covered with salts that change color with saturation and desiccation: No life necessary • Other scientists reported having trouble seeing canals C.M. Rodrigue, 2007 Geography, CSULB

  37. Mars: History of Mars Exploration • History of Earth-based Mars exploration • The Geographic Period: Telescopes plus maps … plus speculation • Lowell responds by turning to popular audiences, shunning the peer review that is central to science • Public lectures, popular magazine stories • His stories became more extreme • Other scientists began to shy away from Mars • A few, however, were caught up in Lowell’s beliefs: • Nikola Tesla claimed to detect radio signals from Mars in 1899 • Guglielmo Marconi, of radio fame, also claimed to have heard from an alien radio transmitter C.M. Rodrigue, 2007 Geography, CSULB

  38. Mars: History of Mars Exploration • History of Earth-based Mars exploration • The Geographic Period: Telescopes plus maps … plus speculation • The 60” Hale Telescope at Mt. Wilson turned up nary a canal • In 1913, Edward Maunder did a psychological experiment showing how the human eye tends to see patterns linking random lines and circles and the farther the observer was from the random pattern, the more likely they were to report linearities linking things in the pattern • Lowell dies in 1916, knowing that the scientific community thought Mars was not only uninhabited but uninhabitable • A few hardy souls held out for canals until Mariner C.M. Rodrigue, 2007 Geography, CSULB

  39. Mars: History of Mars Exploration • History of Earth-based Mars exploration • The Spectral Analysis era: A New Mars • The electromagnetic spectrum can be displayed by wavelength C.M. Rodrigue, 2007 Geography, CSULB

  40. Mars: History of Mars Exploration • History of Earth-based Mars exploration • The Spectral Analysis era: A New Mars • Spectral analysis in this context is the study of absorbed, emitted, and scattered radiation • A radiant object can emit wavelengths along the EMS at varying intensities: hot or dense objects emit across a continuous spectrum • Substances in the radiant object or between it and the sensor can absorb certain wavelengths • The wavelengths absorbed are diagnostic of particular minerals or elements or compound • Substances and surfaces also reflect particular wavelengths C.M. Rodrigue, 2007 Geography, CSULB

  41. Mars: History of Mars Exploration • History of Earth-based Mars exploration • The Spectral Analysis era: A New Mars • Some reflectance spectra: water, carbon dioxide, methane C.M. Rodrigue, 2007 Geography, CSULB

  42. Mars: History of Mars Exploration • History of Earth-based Mars exploration • The Spectral Analysis era: A New Mars • Continuous spectra • Emission line spectra • Absorbtion line spectra C.M. Rodrigue, 2007 Geography, CSULB

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