Today marks the 154th anniversary of the birth of Percival Lowell, a man who made his mark on the entire Solar System. Lowell was one of those Lowells from Boston -- the ones who "only spoke to Cabots" while the Cabots spoke only to God. He was rich, well-educated, and spent many years in Japan as a diplomat before retiring to study astronomy.
Lowell had read Schiaparelli's account of discovering "canali" on Mars and immediately decided to have a look for himself. Not the sort of person to piddle around with a little Astroscan on the patio, he built himself an observatory near Flagstaff and commissioned a 24-inch refracting telescope. For the next several years he spent his nights looking through it at Mars, mapping and naming the network of canals he saw covering its surface. He wrote books about Mars, speculating that it was home to advanced intelligent beings, fighting the drying and cooling of their world with huge engineering projects. His vision of Mars inspired Wells, Burroughs, and countless others.
But of course the canals turned out to be an optical illusion. Mars does have vast waterways, but they were carved by liquid water a billion years ago and today carry nothing but windblown dust. There are no Martians.
Lowell's real mark on the Solar System was the ex-planet Pluto. After satisfying his curiosity about Mars, he turned his attention to looking for a trans-Neptunian planet, whose existence was suggested by certain irregularities in Neptune's orbit. He himself didn't live to see it, but fourteen years after his death Clyde Tombaugh, working at Lowell's observatory, found a tiny moving speck on the photo plates. On what would have been Lowell's seventy-fifth birthday, Tombaugh announced his discovery. The new planet was named Pluto, in honor of the Roman god of the underworld -- but also in honor of Percival Lowell. PLuto, geddit?
So, have a glass of sake in honor of the man who discovered canals that weren't there and sponsored the discovery of a planet which isn't.
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