More than 400 years ago, Giordano Bruno, an Italian monk, wrote that "In space there are numberless earths circling around other suns, which may bear upon them creatures similar or even superior to those upon our human Earth." Bruno deserves to be remembered in the millennium year -- he was burnt at the stake, in Rome, in the year 1600.
In the late 19th century, the science fiction of Jules Verne and H.G. Wells popularised the idea of alien life. Percival Lowell, a wealthy American, built his own observatory in Flagstaff, Arizona primarily to study Mars. He believed that its surface was criss-crossed by 'canals', dug by an advanced civilisation to channel water from the frozen polar caps to the 'deserts' near the Red Planet's equator.
By Sir Martin Rees, Astronomer Royal
No comments:
Post a Comment