(2019 Archived) - Venus Loses her Fame and Mars Rises to Popularity: The Exposition of a Cumbersome Reality, The Canali Scandal and its Aftermath.

Having written this in 2019, and originally published in 2021.. when I was 15 and 17, there would be inaccuracies that I would correct here. Having removed it, I'm publishing  again, for sake of completion so that the efforts wouldn't have gone to vain: Here, the history of both planets and how Mars became the more popular still holds true. I disagree now that that Venus has been under-researched, we do know and research quite Venus rigorously. However, its undeniable that outside some subcultures, Mars is the much more beloved. 

Galileo Galilei was the first person to observe Venus with a telescope, in 1609. He saw nothing, but an ‘absolutely featureless disk’. Over time, telescopes became larger with improved resolution, but nevertheless still saw Venus as the same ‘absolutely featureless disk’. It evidently meant that Venus was covered by a “dense layer of obscuring cloud” ^[4].

(Fig.3). Mariner 10. Retrieved from (https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e5/Venus-real_color.jpg).

Assuming that the dense cloud-layer was comprised of water vapour; scientists speculated Venus to be a global swamp, like the Carboniferous Earth. If you’re curious as to how this rather curious conclusion was drawn – the below abbreviation by Dr. Carl Sagan, in his Cosmos, would answer that ever-so-perfectly ^[4]:

“I can’t see a thing on Venus"

"Why not?"

"Because it is totally covered with clouds"

"What is it made of?"

Afterwards, things started to go wrong:

"Water of course"  

" Then why are the clouds of Venus thicker than on Earth?"

"There's more water there"

"But if there is more water in the clouds, there must be more water on the surface. What kinds of surfaces are very wet?"

"Swamps"

Unfortunately, for the then-scientists, this hopeful scenario broke-down with the astronomical spectroscopy of the Venusian atmosphere, from the Mount Wilson Observatory around the late 1920s, which revealed not a hint or trace of water vapour in the Venusian atmosphere ^[4]. Afterwards, scientists speculated Venus to be (1) an arid desert-world, (2) a planet-wide oil-field with global oceans of petroleum, and (3) a global sea of seltzer (carbonated water) with occasional limestone-encrusted islands ^[4].

After decades of speculation, the true situation of Venus was finally revealed by the Soviet Venera and American Pioneer 12 missions – and they were disappointing: Venus was found to have a hellish surface temperature of ~480^oC, which is not only hot enough to melt lead, but unsympathetically breaks the aforementioned hypotheses of what the Venusian surface might be. Similarly, the atmospheric pressure was found to be 92 bars (Earth atmospheres), which is equivalent to being submerged ~900 metres under the ocean surface ^[3]. Moreover, the Venusian clouds were found to be chiefly concentrated sulphuric acid, with the surface being highly volcanically active ^[4]! The few surviving photographs of the Venusian surface reflect its hostility, to perfection: Truly, “With searing heat, noxious gases and everything suffused in an eerie reddish glow, Venus seems less a goddess of love than an incarnation of hell” ^[4]. Our realization of the true nature of the Venusian surface deemed it lifeless and unwholesome. Ever since, Venus didn’t seem suitable for neither manned exploration nor colonization. Perhaps even her exploration, to an extent!

    (Fig.4). Venera 13. Retrieved from (https://i.redd.it/iqpadr2wvykz.jpg).

Meanwhile Mars was going through quite the contrary metamorphosis: In 1877, the Italian astronomer Giovanni Schiaparelli reported seeing “an intricate network of single and double straight lines crisscrossing the bright areas of the planet [Mars]” ^[4], during one of its closest approaches. Schiaparelli proceeded with calling them canali (Italian for channels or grooves), which was regrettably promptly ‘mistranslated’ to canals, which was quite allusive of intelligent design.

A new mania for the red planet spread across Europe, swept across the Atlantic Ocean, and made its way to America; where it reached the Bostonian astronomer Percival Lowell – the man who discovered Pluto. Lowell decided to continue Schiaparelli’s work and managed to draw maps of a planet-wide system of canals on Mars. It was then believed that Mars was inhabited by an older-and-wiser race of alien intelligence who constructed a “global girdling network of great irrigation ditches, carrying water from the melting polar caps, to the thirsty inhabitants of equatorial cities” ^[4]. The concept even made itself into the then-modern literature, with H.G. Well’s sci-fi classic; The War of the Worlds being a perfect example. However, the canali scenario was far from reality; especially considering that the Martian polar ice caps are dry ice (solid Carbon Dioxide) and Mars’ hostilities towards life and civilization. Today, it is common-sense that Mars is devoid of life of any-sort, which would have been capable to engineer such an intricate network of non-existing canals; Comparisons between Lowell’s maps and modern high-resolution images of Mars show no correlation at all ^[4], meaning that the canali and canals must have been owing to bad seeing-conditions, or mere figments of Schiaparelli’s and Lowell’s run-loose imaginations. Nevertheless, this was quite a good demonstration of how we, as humans, love to see ‘patterns’, even when non-existent – human nature to the finest.

However, the canali incident had made its impact, by giving Mars a steadfast home in popular-culture, which resulted in Mars’ popularity to rise exponentially –  a popularity that never died-down –  a popularity which thrives with its roots deep in our social milieu. Mars had been and still subject to numerous missions of robotic exploration and searches for life.

On the contrary, Venusian popularity died down. Due to her fall of overall popularity; apart for a few missions, Venus had been largely ignored since the 1980s. But is it truly fair? Now that Mars is popular, is it where we ought to go? Well, to truly be fair, we’d have to put Venus and Mars for colonization, to trial.

[4] Sagan, C. (1995). Cosmos. [London: Abacus].  Pages 110-118, & Pages 127-131.

Achinthya Nanayakkara (30.03.2025)

Originally published - 2021 (now removed)

Originallly written - 2019