It turned out they were an optical illusion, created by the mountains and craters on Mars when viewed through low quality telescopes. He used his fortune to build an entire observatory, just to get a better look.
Others had documented strange lines traversing the planet, and Lowell suggested that these were canals, built as the last attempt of a dying civilisation to tap water from the polar ice caps. Over the coming decades, he made a number of wild claims.įirst up, he was convinced of the existence of Martians, and thought he had found them (he hadn't).
The 19th-Century travel writer and businessman – fabulously wealthy, perennially moustachioed, and often found in crisp three-piece suits – had read a book on Mars, and on this basis, decided to become an astronomer. Percival Lowell was a man of many errors.
