Assault on Mars nears its climax

Posted by tourdemars to Life on Mars at December 22, 2003 12:00 PM

The prospect of life on Mars has charged the public imagination for more than a century, ever since astronomers first spied what they thought were canals dug to irrigate the planet’s ruddy surface. But after spacecraft and Earth-based telescopes began taking a closer look at the planet, evidence of the canals — and the Martians who presumably created them — quickly vanished.