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“On the Revolutions of the heavenly Orbs” is published by Nicholaus Copernicus which contains a radical notion that planets orbit around the sun, and that the Earth was the center of the universe.
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Johannes Kepler publishes his “laws of planetary motion” which are based on a calculation of an elliptical orbit of Mars.
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Galileo Galilei observes mars with his Primitive telescope and writes about his observations of the phases indicating a spherical body illuminated by the sun
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The first sketch of Mars is drawn by the Dutch astronomer Christiaan Huygens
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First reasonably accurate dimensions of the solar system are made by two scientist Jean Richer and Giovanni Domenico Cassini
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Isaac Newton publishes his Principia, which introduces the principle of universal gravitation and provides physical basis for the basis of the planets
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Giacomo Filippo Maraldi records white spots at the poles of mars
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Gulliver’s travels by Jonathan Swift speculates that there are two moons of Mars, although this may have been a lucky guess.
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The analogy between mars and earth is the greatest in the whole solar system. The diurnal motion is nearly the same; the obliquity of their respective ecliptics, on which the seasons depend, not very different. The distance of mars from the sun is the nearest alike to that of earth.
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Honere Flaugergues, a French amateur, notes the presence of ‘yellow clouds’ on Mars, which were later discovered as dust clouds.
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Flaugergues notices a rapid melting of the ice caps on mars, signifying that mars is hotter than earth.
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First theorization of Mars by William Whewell that it supposedly has green seas, red land and possibility of life forms
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Emmanuel Liais proposes vegetation on Mars and suggests that the dark areas are not seas but are vegetation tracts
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Asaph Hall announces the discovery of Mars’ two moons. These moons are named Phobos (fear) and Deimos (flight). In Roman mythology, these names are attributed to the sons of the god of Mars, Aphrodite. The moon Phobos measures 26.6 km across its widest point. It orbits mars every 7.65 hours at an average distance of 9,378 km in a circular orbit 1 degree Mars' equator. Deimos measures approximately 15 by 12 by 11 km and orbits the planet every 30.3 hours at an average distance of 23,459 km away.
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Giovanni Virginio Schiaparelli from Milan develops a new nomenclature for mapping Mars. He names the Martian “seas” and continents by taking the names from historical, mythological and terrestrial lands and various terms for hell.
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On August 12th, an Editorial in The New York Times is published called “Is Mars Inhabited?” The possibility of life on Mars is discussed in the press.
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Helene Smith, has visions of Mars while under hypnosis induced by the eminent psychologist Theodore Flournoy. She imagines herself standing on mars and meeting Martians. She claims that she can even speak Martian, which is similar to French. Flournoy later describes his subject in From India to the Planet Mars.
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The War of the Worlds is published first in Pearson’s Magazine, and U.S Cosmopolitan. Throughout the year it gained immense popularity and is published in hardback. It is about Americans flying machines that go to Mars and fight Martians and was significant because it gained wide popularity within the public.
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Nikola Tesla, a Serbian-American inventor and scientist, is building a wireless system to communicate with Martians. In 1905, Nikola Tesla uses an interplanetary Telephone that uses an oscillator to “wake up” mars. The New York Times Tesla’s transmitter as “nothing more than a useful piece of electrical apparatus,” which causes him to write a strongly worded letter to the times.
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Professor David Peck Todd from Amherst college and Earl C. Slipher go to open desert in Alianza, Chile to photograph mars to get the clearest seeing possible. They had a specially built camera. Slipher makes photos of the Martian canals, and a few months later Century magazine prints the photos.
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The Wall Street Journal prints “proof by astronomical observations.. that conscious, intelligent human life exists upon the planet mars,” which is reported as one of the most moments events of the year.
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Guglielmo Marconi announced that several of his radio stations were picking up on very strong signals “seeming to come from beyond earth” Nikola Tesla believed these signals were coming from mars
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As more start to wonder about sustainable life on Mars, Walter S. Adams correctly determines that Mars is “ultra-arid” by studying spectral lines.
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"La Planete Mars" by Eugenious M. Antoniadi is published. This is a complete and representative summary of the surface of mars based on the telescope observations done by the same astronomer near Paris who produced the best available maps of mars.
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6 million people listened to The War of the Worlds through radio, and despite advertisement that it was a play 1 million people believed that Martians landing at Grovers Mill, New Jersey was true. Link: A full feature of the broadcasted show. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xs0K4ApWl4g)
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Carbon dioxide, but no oxygen shows up on infrared spectra grams. Gerard Peter Kupier deduces that the Martian atmosphere contains twice as much carbon dioxide as Earth’s. The 'Das Mars Projekt," (The Mars Project) consisting of 10 ships and 70 crewmembers is proposed by Wernher von Bruan. The fleet of ten ships would go to Mars and return in about 520 days.
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Lichens are proposed as a possible form of life for Mars. Conditions seem too harsh for more complex forms of life.
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The Space Age begins with the Soviet launch of Sputik 1, an earth orbiting satellite, on October 4th 1957. Link: Launch of first satellite into space. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xw57VErRjA8)
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Hyron Spinrad reported measurements of water in the atmosphere of mars through spectroscopic observations. However, it was less than one thousandth of the water typically in the atmosphere above the Sahara desert, concluding that the Martian desert is extremely dry.
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On July 15th, the Mariner 4 flyby of Mars was the 4th in a series of spacecrafts intended to discovery space in flyby mode. This was the first successful space probe and was responsible for the beginning of tangible space exploration. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w3V_JdM1f10)
