Mars in history
Encyclopedia
The planet Mars
is named after the Roman
god of war Mars
. In Babylonia
n astronomy, the planet was named after Nergal
, their deity
of fire, war, and destruction, most likely due to the planet's reddish appearance. Whether the Greeks
equated Nergal with their god of war, Ares, or whether both drew from a more ancient association is unclear. In the age of Plato
, the Greeks called the planet Ἄρεως ἀστἡρ (Areos aster), or "star of Ares". Following the identification
of Ares and Mars, it was translated into Latin as stella Martis, or "star of Mars", or simply Mars. The Hellenistic Greeks also called the planet Πυρόεις Pyroeis, meaning "fiery".
In the Skanda Purana
, a Hindu
religious text, Mars is known as the deity Mangala
(मंगल) and was born from the sweat of Shiva
. The planet is called Angaraka in Sanskrit
, after the celibate god of war who possesses the signs of Aries
and Scorpio
, and teaches the occult sciences. The planet was known by the ancient Egypt
ians as "Horus of the Horizon", then later Her Deshur ("Ḥr Dšr"), or "Horus
the Red". The Hebrews
named it Ma'adim (מאדים) — "the one who blushes"; this is where one of the largest canyons on Mars, the Ma'adim Vallis
, gets its name. The Chinese and Korea
n cultures refer to the planet as 火星, or the fire star, a name based on the ancient Chinese mythological cycle of Five elements
. In ancient China, the advent of Mars was taken as a portent for "bane, grief, war and murder".
Its symbol, derived from Roman mythology
, is a circle with a small arrow pointing out from behind. It is a stylized representation of a shield and spear used by the Roman God Mars. The modern symbol was first found to be written in Byzantine Greek manuscripts dated from the late Middle Ages
. Mars in Roman mythology was the God of War and patron of warriors. This symbol is also used in biology to describe the male
sex, and in alchemy
to symbolise
the element iron which was considered to be dominated by Mars whose characteristic red colour is coincidentally due to iron oxide. ♂ occupies Unicode
position U+2642.
In The Planets
by British composer Gustav Holst
, Mars is depicted as the "Bringer of War".
The Flaming Lips
won a 2003 Grammy award for their rock instrumental song "Approaching Pavonis Mons by Balloon" from the album Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots
.
The popular idea that Mars was populated by intelligent Martian
s exploded in the late 19th century. Schiaparelli's
"canali" observations combined with Percival Lowell's
books on the subject put forward the standard notion of a planet that was a drying, cooling, dying world with ancient civilizations constructing irrigation works.
Many other observations and proclamations by notable personalities added to what has been termed "Mars Fever". In 1899 while investigating atmospheric radio noise using his receivers in his Colorado Springs lab, inventor Nikola Tesla
observed repetitive signals that he later surmised might have been radio communications coming from another planet, possibly Mars. In a 1901 interview Tesla said:
Tesla's theories gained support from Lord Kelvin who, while visiting the United States in 1902, was reported to have said that he thought Tesla had picked up Martian signals being sent to the United States. Kelvin "emphatically" denied this report shortly before departing America: "What I really said was that the inhabitants of Mars, if there are any, were doubtless able to see New York, particularly the glare of the electricity."
In a New York Times article in 1901, Edward Charles Pickering
, director of the Harvard College Observatory
, said that they had received a telegram from Lowell Observatory
in Arizona
that seemed to confirm that Mars was trying to communicate with the Earth.
Pickering later proposed creating a set of mirrors in Texas
with the intention of signaling Martians.
In recent decades, the high resolution mapping of the surface of Mars, culminating in Mars Global Surveyor
, revealed no artifacts of habitation by 'intelligent' life, but pseudoscientific speculation about intelligent life on Mars continues from commentators such as Richard C. Hoagland
. Reminiscent of the canali controversy, some speculations are based on small scale features perceived in the spacecraft images, such as 'pyramids' and the 'Face on Mars'. Planetary astronomer Carl Sagan
wrote:
The depiction of Mars in fiction has been stimulated by its dramatic red color and by nineteenth century scientific speculations that its surface conditions not only might support life, but intelligent life. Thus originated a large number of science fiction
scenarios, among which is H. G. Wells
' The War of the Worlds, published in 1898, in which Martians seek to escape their dying planet by invading Earth. A subsequent US radio adaptation of The War of the Worlds
on October 30, 1938 by Orson Welles
was presented as a live news broadcast, and became notorious for causing a public panic when many listeners mistook it for the truth.
Influential works included Ray Bradbury
's The Martian Chronicles
, in which human explorers accidentally destroy a Martian civilization, Edgar Rice Burroughs
' Barsoom series
, C. S. Lewis
' novel Out of the Silent Planet
(1938), and a number of Robert A. Heinlein
stories before the mid-sixties.
Author Jonathan Swift
made reference to the moons of Mars, about 150 years before their actual discovery by Asaph Hall
, detailing reasonably accurate descriptions of their orbits, in the 19th chapter of his novel Gulliver's Travels
.
A comic figure of an intelligent Martian, Marvin the Martian
, appeared on television in 1948 as a character in the Looney Tunes
animated cartoons of Warner Brothers, and has continued as part of popular culture to the present.
After the Mariner
and Viking
spacecraft had returned pictures of Mars as it really is, an apparently lifeless and canal-less world, these ideas about Mars had to be abandoned and a vogue for accurate, realist depictions of human colonies on Mars developed, the best known of which may be Kim Stanley Robinson
's Mars trilogy
. Pseudo-scientific speculations about the Face on Mars and other enigmatic landmarks spotted by space probe
s have meant that ancient civilizations continue to be a popular theme in science fiction, especially in film.
The theme of a Martian colony that fights for independence from Earth is a major plot element in the novels of Greg Bear
as well as the movie Total Recall
(based on a short story by Philip K. Dick
) and the television series Babylon 5
. Some video games also use this element, including Red Faction
and the Zone of the Enders
series. Mars (and its moons) were also the setting for the popular Doom video game franchise and the later Martian Gothic.
Mars
Mars is the fourth planet from the Sun in the Solar System. The planet is named after the Roman god of war, Mars. It is often described as the "Red Planet", as the iron oxide prevalent on its surface gives it a reddish appearance...
is named after the Roman
Ancient Rome
Ancient Rome was a thriving civilization that grew on the Italian Peninsula as early as the 8th century BC. Located along the Mediterranean Sea and centered on the city of Rome, it expanded to one of the largest empires in the ancient world....
god of war Mars
Mars (mythology)
Mars was the Roman god of war and also an agricultural guardian, a combination characteristic of early Rome. He was second in importance only to Jupiter, and he was the most prominent of the military gods worshipped by the Roman legions...
. In Babylonia
Babylonia
Babylonia was an ancient cultural region in central-southern Mesopotamia , with Babylon as its capital. Babylonia emerged as a major power when Hammurabi Babylonia was an ancient cultural region in central-southern Mesopotamia (present-day Iraq), with Babylon as its capital. Babylonia emerged as...
n astronomy, the planet was named after Nergal
Nergal
The name Nergal, Nirgal, or Nirgali refers to a deity in Babylon with the main seat of his cult at Cuthah represented by the mound of Tell-Ibrahim. Nergal is mentioned in the Hebrew bible as the deity of the city of Cuth : "And the men of Babylon made Succoth-benoth, and the men of Cuth made Nergal"...
, their deity
Deity
A deity is a recognized preternatural or supernatural immortal being, who may be thought of as holy, divine, or sacred, held in high regard, and respected by believers....
of fire, war, and destruction, most likely due to the planet's reddish appearance. Whether the Greeks
Ancient Greece
Ancient Greece is a civilization belonging to a period of Greek history that lasted from the Archaic period of the 8th to 6th centuries BC to the end of antiquity. Immediately following this period was the beginning of the Early Middle Ages and the Byzantine era. Included in Ancient Greece is the...
equated Nergal with their god of war, Ares, or whether both drew from a more ancient association is unclear. In the age of Plato
Plato
Plato , was a Classical Greek philosopher, mathematician, student of Socrates, writer of philosophical dialogues, and founder of the Academy in Athens, the first institution of higher learning in the Western world. Along with his mentor, Socrates, and his student, Aristotle, Plato helped to lay the...
, the Greeks called the planet Ἄρεως ἀστἡρ (Areos aster), or "star of Ares". Following the identification
Interpretatio graeca
Interpretatio graeca is a Latin term for the common tendency of ancient Greek writers to equate foreign divinities to members of their own pantheon. Herodotus, for example, refers to the ancient Egyptian gods Amon, Osiris and Ptah as "Zeus", "Dionysus" and "Hephaestus", respectively.-Roman...
of Ares and Mars, it was translated into Latin as stella Martis, or "star of Mars", or simply Mars. The Hellenistic Greeks also called the planet Πυρόεις Pyroeis, meaning "fiery".
In the Skanda Purana
Skanda Purana
The Skanda Purana is the largest Mahapurana, a genre of eighteen Hindu religious texts. The text is devoted mainly to the lilas of Kartikeya , a son of Shiva and Parvati. It also contains a number of legends about Shiva, and the holy places associated with him...
, a Hindu
Hindu
Hindu refers to an identity associated with the philosophical, religious and cultural systems that are indigenous to the Indian subcontinent. As used in the Constitution of India, the word "Hindu" is also attributed to all persons professing any Indian religion...
religious text, Mars is known as the deity Mangala
Mangala
In Jyotish astrology, Mangala is the name for Mars, the red planet. Mars is also called Angaraka In Jyotish astrology, Mangala (Devanagari: मंगल) is the name for Mars, the red planet. Mars is also called Angaraka In Jyotish astrology, Mangala (Devanagari: मंगल) is the name for Mars, the red...
(मंगल) and was born from the sweat of Shiva
Shiva
Shiva is a major Hindu deity, and is the destroyer god or transformer among the Trimurti, the Hindu Trinity of the primary aspects of the divine. God Shiva is a yogi who has notice of everything that happens in the world and is the main aspect of life. Yet one with great power lives a life of a...
. The planet is called Angaraka in Sanskrit
Sanskrit
Sanskrit , is a historical Indo-Aryan language and the primary liturgical language of Hinduism, Jainism and Buddhism.Buddhism: besides Pali, see Buddhist Hybrid Sanskrit Today, it is listed as one of the 22 scheduled languages of India and is an official language of the state of Uttarakhand...
, after the celibate god of war who possesses the signs of Aries
Aries (astrology)
Aries is the first astrological sign in the Zodiac, which spans the zodiac between the zero degree and the 29th degree of celestial longitude. The Sun enters Aries when it reaches the northern vernal equinox, which is usually on March 21 each year, and remains in this sign until around April 20...
and Scorpio
Scorpio (astrology)
|Infobox align="right" style="border:3px solid white;"||style="text-align: center;"|Scorpio is the eighth astrological sign in the Zodiac, which spans the zodiac between the 210th and 239th degree of celestial longitude. Generally, the Sun transits this area of the zodiac between 24 October and...
, and teaches the occult sciences. The planet was known by the ancient Egypt
Ancient Egypt
Ancient Egypt was an ancient civilization of Northeastern Africa, concentrated along the lower reaches of the Nile River in what is now the modern country of Egypt. Egyptian civilization coalesced around 3150 BC with the political unification of Upper and Lower Egypt under the first pharaoh...
ians as "Horus of the Horizon", then later Her Deshur ("Ḥr Dšr"), or "Horus
Horus
Horus is one of the oldest and most significant deities in the Ancient Egyptian religion, who was worshipped from at least the late Predynastic period through to Greco-Roman times. Different forms of Horus are recorded in history and these are treated as distinct gods by Egyptologists...
the Red". The Hebrews
Hebrews
Hebrews is an ethnonym used in the Hebrew Bible...
named it Ma'adim (מאדים) — "the one who blushes"; this is where one of the largest canyons on Mars, the Ma'adim Vallis
Ma'adim Vallis
Ma'adim Vallis is one of the largest outflow channels on Mars, about 700 km long and significantly larger than Earth's Grand Canyon. It is over 20 km wide and 2 km deep in some places. It runs from a region of southern lowlands thought to have once contained a large group of lakes ...
, gets its name. The Chinese and Korea
Korea
Korea ) is an East Asian geographic region that is currently divided into two separate sovereign states — North Korea and South Korea. Located on the Korean Peninsula, Korea is bordered by the People's Republic of China to the northwest, Russia to the northeast, and is separated from Japan to the...
n cultures refer to the planet as 火星, or the fire star, a name based on the ancient Chinese mythological cycle of Five elements
Five elements (Chinese philosophy)
The Wu Xing, also known as the Five Phases, the Five Agents, the Five Movements, and the Five Steps/Stages, are chiefly an ancient mnemonic device, in many traditional Chinese fields....
. In ancient China, the advent of Mars was taken as a portent for "bane, grief, war and murder".
Roman mythology
Roman mythology is the body of traditional stories pertaining to ancient Rome's legendary origins and religious system, as represented in the literature and visual arts of the Romans...
, is a circle with a small arrow pointing out from behind. It is a stylized representation of a shield and spear used by the Roman God Mars. The modern symbol was first found to be written in Byzantine Greek manuscripts dated from the late Middle Ages
Middle Ages
The Middle Ages is a periodization of European history from the 5th century to the 15th century. The Middle Ages follows the fall of the Western Roman Empire in 476 and precedes the Early Modern Era. It is the middle period of a three-period division of Western history: Classic, Medieval and Modern...
. Mars in Roman mythology was the God of War and patron of warriors. This symbol is also used in biology to describe the male
Male
Male refers to the biological sex of an organism, or part of an organism, which produces small mobile gametes, called spermatozoa. Each spermatozoon can fuse with a larger female gamete or ovum, in the process of fertilization...
sex, and in alchemy
Alchemy
Alchemy is an influential philosophical tradition whose early practitioners’ claims to profound powers were known from antiquity. The defining objectives of alchemy are varied; these include the creation of the fabled philosopher's stone possessing powers including the capability of turning base...
to symbolise
Alchemical symbol
Alchemical symbols, originally devised as part of alchemy, were used to denote some elements and some compounds until the 18th century. Note that while notation like this was mostly standardized, style and symbol varied between alchemists, so this page lists the most common.-Three primes:According...
the element iron which was considered to be dominated by Mars whose characteristic red colour is coincidentally due to iron oxide. ♂ occupies Unicode
Unicode
Unicode is a computing industry standard for the consistent encoding, representation and handling of text expressed in most of the world's writing systems...
position U+2642.
In The Planets
The Planets
The Planets, Op. 32, is a seven-movement orchestral suite by the English composer Gustav Holst, written between 1914 and 1916. Each movement of the suite is named after a planet of the Solar System and its corresponding astrological character as defined by Holst...
by British composer Gustav Holst
Gustav Holst
Gustav Theodore Holst was an English composer. He is most famous for his orchestral suite The Planets....
, Mars is depicted as the "Bringer of War".
The Flaming Lips
The Flaming Lips
The Flaming Lips are an American alternative rock band, formed in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma in 1983.Melodically, their sound contains lush, multi-layered, psychedelic rock arrangements, but lyrically their compositions show elements of space rock, including unusual song and album titles—such as "What...
won a 2003 Grammy award for their rock instrumental song "Approaching Pavonis Mons by Balloon" from the album Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots
Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots
-Special edition DVD-Audio:-The Flaming Lips:* Wayne Coyne - guitar, vocals, artwork, mixing, production* Michael Ivins - bass guitar, keyboards, vocals, mixing, production, additional engineering...
.
Intelligent "Martians"
Martian
As an adjective, the term martian is used to describe anything pertaining to the planet Mars.However, a Martian is more usually a hypothetical or fictional native inhabitant of the planet Mars. Historically, life on Mars has often been hypothesized, although there is currently no solid evidence of...
s exploded in the late 19th century. Schiaparelli's
Giovanni Schiaparelli
Giovanni Virginio Schiaparelli was an Italian astronomer and science historian. He studied at the University of Turin and Berlin Observatory. In 1859-1860 he worked in Pulkovo Observatory and then worked for over forty years at Brera Observatory...
"canali" observations combined with Percival Lowell's
Percival Lowell
Percival Lawrence Lowell was a businessman, author, mathematician, and astronomer who fueled speculation that there were canals on Mars, founded the Lowell Observatory in Flagstaff, Arizona, and formed the beginning of the effort that led to the discovery of Pluto 14 years after his death...
books on the subject put forward the standard notion of a planet that was a drying, cooling, dying world with ancient civilizations constructing irrigation works.
Many other observations and proclamations by notable personalities added to what has been termed "Mars Fever". In 1899 while investigating atmospheric radio noise using his receivers in his Colorado Springs lab, inventor Nikola Tesla
Nikola Tesla
Nikola Tesla was a Serbian-American inventor, mechanical engineer, and electrical engineer...
observed repetitive signals that he later surmised might have been radio communications coming from another planet, possibly Mars. In a 1901 interview Tesla said:
It was some time afterward when the thought flashed upon my mind that the disturbances I had observed might be due to an intelligent control. Although I could not decipher their meaning, it was impossible for me to think of them as having been entirely accidental. The feeling is constantly growing on me that I had been the first to hear the greeting of one planet to another.
Tesla's theories gained support from Lord Kelvin who, while visiting the United States in 1902, was reported to have said that he thought Tesla had picked up Martian signals being sent to the United States. Kelvin "emphatically" denied this report shortly before departing America: "What I really said was that the inhabitants of Mars, if there are any, were doubtless able to see New York, particularly the glare of the electricity."
In a New York Times article in 1901, Edward Charles Pickering
Edward Charles Pickering
Edward Charles Pickering was an American astronomer and physicist, brother of William Henry Pickering.Along with Carl Vogel, Pickering discovered the first spectroscopic binary stars. He wrote Elements of Physical Manipulations .Pickering attended Boston Latin School, and received his B.S. from...
, director of the Harvard College Observatory
Harvard College Observatory
The Harvard College Observatory is an institution managing a complex of buildings and multiple instruments used for astronomical research by the Harvard University Department of Astronomy. It is located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA, and was founded in 1839...
, said that they had received a telegram from Lowell Observatory
Lowell Observatory
Lowell Observatory is an astronomical observatory in Flagstaff, Arizona. Lowell Observatory was established in 1894, placing it among the oldest observatories in the United States, and was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1965....
in Arizona
Arizona
Arizona ; is a state located in the southwestern region of the United States. It is also part of the western United States and the mountain west. The capital and largest city is Phoenix...
that seemed to confirm that Mars was trying to communicate with the Earth.
Early in December 1900, we received from Lowell Observatory in Arizona a telegram that a shaft of light had been seen to project from Mars (the Lowell observatory makes a specialty of Mars) lasting seventy minutes. I wired these facts to Europe and sent out neostyle copies through this country. The observer there is a careful, reliable man and there is no reason to doubt that the light existed. It was given as from a well-known geographical point on Mars. That was all. Now the story has gone the world over. In Europe it is stated that I have been in communication with Mars, and all sorts of exaggerations have spring up. Whatever the light was, we have no means of knowing. Whether it had intelligence or not, no one can say. It is absolutely inexplicable.
Pickering later proposed creating a set of mirrors in Texas
Texas
Texas is the second largest U.S. state by both area and population, and the largest state by area in the contiguous United States.The name, based on the Caddo word "Tejas" meaning "friends" or "allies", was applied by the Spanish to the Caddo themselves and to the region of their settlement in...
with the intention of signaling Martians.
In recent decades, the high resolution mapping of the surface of Mars, culminating in Mars Global Surveyor
Mars Global Surveyor
The Mars Global Surveyor was a US spacecraft developed by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory and launched November 1996. It began the United States's return to Mars after a 10-year absence. It completed its primary mission in January 2001 and was in its third extended mission phase when, on 2...
, revealed no artifacts of habitation by 'intelligent' life, but pseudoscientific speculation about intelligent life on Mars continues from commentators such as Richard C. Hoagland
Richard C. Hoagland
Richard Charles Hoagland, is an American author and a proponent of various conspiracy theories about NASA, lost alien civilizations on the Moon and on Mars and other related topics....
. Reminiscent of the canali controversy, some speculations are based on small scale features perceived in the spacecraft images, such as 'pyramids' and the 'Face on Mars'. Planetary astronomer Carl Sagan
Carl Sagan
Carl Edward Sagan was an American astronomer, astrophysicist, cosmologist, author, science popularizer and science communicator in astronomy and natural sciences. He published more than 600 scientific papers and articles and was author, co-author or editor of more than 20 books...
wrote:
Mars has become a kind of mythic arena onto which we have projected our Earthly hopes and fears.
Science fiction
Science fiction is a genre of fiction dealing with imaginary but more or less plausible content such as future settings, futuristic science and technology, space travel, aliens, and paranormal abilities...
scenarios, among which is H. G. Wells
H. G. Wells
Herbert George Wells was an English author, now best known for his work in the science fiction genre. He was also a prolific writer in many other genres, including contemporary novels, history, politics and social commentary, even writing text books and rules for war games...
' The War of the Worlds, published in 1898, in which Martians seek to escape their dying planet by invading Earth. A subsequent US radio adaptation of The War of the Worlds
The War of the Worlds (radio)
The War of the Worlds was an episode of the American radio drama anthology series Mercury Theatre on the Air. It was performed as a Halloween episode of the series on October 30, 1938, and aired over the Columbia Broadcasting System radio network. Directed and narrated by actor and future filmmaker...
on October 30, 1938 by Orson Welles
Orson Welles
George Orson Welles , best known as Orson Welles, was an American film director, actor, theatre director, screenwriter, and producer, who worked extensively in film, theatre, television and radio...
was presented as a live news broadcast, and became notorious for causing a public panic when many listeners mistook it for the truth.
Influential works included Ray Bradbury
Ray Bradbury
Ray Douglas Bradbury is an American fantasy, horror, science fiction, and mystery writer. Best known for his dystopian novel Fahrenheit 451 and for the science fiction stories gathered together as The Martian Chronicles and The Illustrated Man , Bradbury is one of the most celebrated among 20th...
's The Martian Chronicles
The Martian Chronicles
The Martian Chronicles is a 1950 science fiction short story collection by Ray Bradbury that chronicles the colonization of Mars by humans fleeing from a troubled and eventually atomically devastated Earth, and the conflict between aboriginal Martians and the new colonists...
, in which human explorers accidentally destroy a Martian civilization, Edgar Rice Burroughs
Edgar Rice Burroughs
Edgar Rice Burroughs was an American author, best known for his creation of the jungle hero Tarzan and the heroic Mars adventurer John Carter, although he produced works in many genres.-Biography:...
' Barsoom series
Barsoom
Barsoom is a fictional representation of the planet Mars created by American pulp fiction author Edgar Rice Burroughs, who wrote close to 100 action adventure stories in various genres in the first half of the 20th century, and is now best known as the creator of the character Tarzan...
, C. S. Lewis
C. S. Lewis
Clive Staples Lewis , commonly referred to as C. S. Lewis and known to his friends and family as "Jack", was a novelist, academic, medievalist, literary critic, essayist, lay theologian and Christian apologist from Belfast, Ireland...
' novel Out of the Silent Planet
Out of the Silent Planet
Out of the Silent Planet is the first novel of a science fiction trilogy written by C. S. Lewis, sometimes referred to as the Space Trilogy, Ransom Trilogy or Cosmic Trilogy. The other volumes are Perelandra and That Hideous Strength, and a fragment of a sequel was published posthumously as The...
(1938), and a number of Robert A. Heinlein
Robert A. Heinlein
Robert Anson Heinlein was an American science fiction writer. Often called the "dean of science fiction writers", he was one of the most influential and controversial authors of the genre. He set a standard for science and engineering plausibility and helped to raise the genre's standards of...
stories before the mid-sixties.
Author Jonathan Swift
Jonathan Swift
Jonathan Swift was an Irish satirist, essayist, political pamphleteer , poet and cleric who became Dean of St...
made reference to the moons of Mars, about 150 years before their actual discovery by Asaph Hall
Asaph Hall
Asaph Hall III was an American astronomer who is most famous for having discovered the moons of Mars in 1877...
, detailing reasonably accurate descriptions of their orbits, in the 19th chapter of his novel Gulliver's Travels
Gulliver's Travels
Travels into Several Remote Nations of the World, in Four Parts. By Lemuel Gulliver, First a Surgeon, and then a Captain of Several Ships, better known simply as Gulliver's Travels , is a novel by Anglo-Irish writer and clergyman Jonathan Swift that is both a satire on human nature and a parody of...
.
A comic figure of an intelligent Martian, Marvin the Martian
Marvin the Martian
Marvin the Martian is a fictional character appearing in the Looney Tunes cartoons. Marvin's likeness appears in miniature on the Spirit rover on Mars.-Conception and creation:...
, appeared on television in 1948 as a character in the Looney Tunes
Looney Tunes
Looney Tunes is a Warner Bros. animated cartoon series. It preceded the Merrie Melodies series and was Warner Bros.'s first animated theatrical series. Since its first official release, 1930's Sinkin' in the Bathtub, the series has become a worldwide media franchise, spawning several television...
animated cartoons of Warner Brothers, and has continued as part of popular culture to the present.
After the Mariner
Mariner program
The Mariner program was a program conducted by the American space agency NASA that launched a series of robotic interplanetary probes designed to investigate Mars, Venus and Mercury from 1963 to 1973...
and Viking
Viking program
The Viking program consisted of a pair of American space probes sent to Mars, Viking 1 and Viking 2. Each spacecraft was composed of two main parts, an orbiter designed to photograph the surface of Mars from orbit, and a lander designed to study the planet from the surface...
spacecraft had returned pictures of Mars as it really is, an apparently lifeless and canal-less world, these ideas about Mars had to be abandoned and a vogue for accurate, realist depictions of human colonies on Mars developed, the best known of which may be Kim Stanley Robinson
Kim Stanley Robinson
Kim Stanley Robinson is an American science fiction writer known for his award-winning Mars trilogy. His work delves into ecological and sociological themes regularly, and many of his novels appear to be the direct result of his own scientific fascinations, such as the fifteen years of research...
's Mars trilogy
Mars trilogy
The Mars trilogy is a series of award-winning science fiction novels by Kim Stanley Robinson that chronicles the settlement and terraforming of the planet Mars through the intensely personal and detailed viewpoints of a wide variety of characters spanning almost two centuries...
. Pseudo-scientific speculations about the Face on Mars and other enigmatic landmarks spotted by space probe
Space probe
A robotic spacecraft is a spacecraft with no humans on board, that is usually under telerobotic control. A robotic spacecraft designed to make scientific research measurements is often called a space probe. Many space missions are more suited to telerobotic rather than crewed operation, due to...
s have meant that ancient civilizations continue to be a popular theme in science fiction, especially in film.
The theme of a Martian colony that fights for independence from Earth is a major plot element in the novels of Greg Bear
Greg Bear
Gregory Dale Bear is an American science fiction and mainstream author. His work has covered themes of galactic conflict , artificial universes , consciousness and cultural practices , and accelerated evolution...
as well as the movie Total Recall
Total Recall
Total Recall is a 1990 American science fiction action film. The film stars Arnold Schwarzenegger, Rachel Ticotin, Sharon Stone, Michael Ironside, Ronny Cox & Mel Johnson, Jr.. It is based on the Philip K. Dick story “We Can Remember It for You Wholesale”...
(based on a short story by Philip K. Dick
Philip K. Dick
Philip Kindred Dick was an American novelist, short story writer and essayist whose published work is almost entirely in the science fiction genre. Dick explored sociological, political and metaphysical themes in novels dominated by monopolistic corporations, authoritarian governments and altered...
) and the television series Babylon 5
Babylon 5
Babylon 5 is an American science fiction television series created, produced and largely written by J. Michael Straczynski. The show centers on a space station named Babylon 5: a focal point for politics, diplomacy, and conflict during the years 2257–2262...
. Some video games also use this element, including Red Faction
Red Faction
Red Faction is a first-person shooter video game developed by Volition, Inc. and published by THQ. It was released for the PlayStation 2, Microsoft Windows and Mac in 2001. A version for the Nokia N-Gage was developed by Monkeystone Games. The game was also re-developed as a top-down shooter for...
and the Zone of the Enders
Zone of the Enders
The soundtrack to Zone of the Enders was released April 25, 2001 on the album Zone of the Enders Z.O.E Original Soundtrack by Konami Music Entertainment. Almost all the music was composed by the trio , and . Also, composed "Global 2 " and , "City ". The theme song "KISS ME SUNLIGHTS" was composed...
series. Mars (and its moons) were also the setting for the popular Doom video game franchise and the later Martian Gothic.