Mars, Mars, Mars! All about the Red Planet

About this Planet Mars Web Site

For over a century and a quarter, the name Mars has been laden with significance. In the year 1877, an astronomer named Giovanni Schiaparelli published maps of the planet Mars containing numerous lines he referred to in Italian as canali, which rightly means simply "channels", natural landscape features. But--perhaps owing to the buzz prevalent over the then-new and exciting Suez Canal--the word was translated in English reports as "canals", implying constructed artifacts, and from that moment on, the human race has eyed the Red Planet with a mixture of awe and fear as the possible home of extra-terrestrial life.

Since that fateful day, fact and fancy have taken turns playing with our conceptions of Mars, each alternately rousing then quashing then rousing again our hopes and beliefs--and fears--of the possibility that there is life wholly unrelated to that of our world on a place that, as astronomical distances go, is practically next door.

This site will give you a complete look at the planet Mars: the astronomical background, the history of human knowledge and speculation about Mars, the art and literature Mars has inspired, the science of--and an examination of--the real possibilities of life on Mars as best we now understand them, and of what the significance of discovering life on Mars would be.

To enrich the information given here, the articles are all very heavily cross-linked to much more thorough explanations (many from the Omniknow online encyclopedia) of many terms and phrases, as well as news releases and papers. To get the full benefit of this site, you should click on most or all of those links. While first reading, click only on those terms you feel you need to know just to follow what appears here--then, when you finish a page here, go back through it and, as you go, click on all the available links in turn. (When you click on a link, it will open as a new window in your browser, with the page you were reading remaining open under it--so, when you're finished with the linked article, just close its browser window and you'll be back where you started from.)

Note that most links appear at the first mention of a term on a given page here, though some terms are linked more than once if they appear in different contexts.

Also note that if you place your browser's cursor over an image or a link (like this link or the images below--try them all), a box will pop up--on most browsers, anyway--with more information about it.

You will find a full Directory of this Mars web site at the bottom of this and every page of it, including also a Google-powered search of this site (or of the whole web); and there is a jump-to link to that Directory at the top right of every page. There is no special order in which you need to read the pages here--just browse as your interest takes you. Enjoy the site!

Two rather different early imaginings of conditions on Mars!

Please also visit to our Mars Bookshop, carrying books related to Mars and space in general from all six of Amazon's national divisions:

(Why not look in at Is it a blog yet?)

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Search this site, or the whole web:   Web mars-mars-mars.com
Site Directory:
(introducing this site)	Introductory Material:
	Please do take a moment to look over  the Introduction page--it's helpful.	Front Page:  · a quick site overview and some mechanical details
(the hard-core Mars information)	Scientific Mars:
	You can read these pages in any order,  but the way they're listed here is clearest.	Planets:  · what they are and where they come from
		Life on Mars:  · the possibilities there, and elsewhere
		Exploring Mars:  · who did what when, and what's next
(Mars in human perspective)	Human Mars: This part of the site is still . . .
	No technical information about Mars here,  but lots of interesting Mars-related things.	Mars in History and Culture:  · a history of beliefs about the heavens and the objects in them
		What If We Find Life on Mars?:  · speculations on the consequences of proven extraterrestrial life
		Science and Religion:  · a brief look at how they do or do not conflict
		Further Mars Resources:  · where to find more Mars-related information
		NASA Online Resources:  · there's so much, it needs a page of its own
(about buying books on Mars and space)	Mars-Related Books:
	We put a lot of effort into keeping  all book data updated daily.	Buying Books New:  · about buying books from Amazon  · searching for new books at any Amazon division
		Buying Books Used:  · about the Advanced Book Exchange
Site Info: Comments? Criticisms? Questions? Please, e-mail us by clicking here. (Or, if you cannot email from your browser, send mail to webmaster@mars-mars-mars.com) All text copyright 2005 - 2008 The Owlcroft Company (All images used are believed to be in the public domain.) This web page is strictly compliant with the W3C (World Wide Web Consortium) Extensible HyperText Markup Language (XHTML) Protocol v1.0 (Transitional). Click on the logo below to test us! Not every browser renders proper HTML correctly (Internet Explorer famously does not); so, if your browser experiences any difficulties with this page (or, really, even if it doesn't), (It's free!)