Canals on Mars

Citation Needed

Citation Needed Media

Comedy, Society & Culture

4.8 • 2.8K Ratings

🗓️ 24 December 2025

⏱️ 34 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

During the late 19th and early 20th centuries, it was erroneously believed that there were "canals" on the planet Mars. These were a network of long straight lines in the equatorial regions from 60° north to 60° south latitude on Mars, observed by astronomers using early telescopes without photography.

They were first described by the Italian astronomer Giovanni Schiaparelli during the opposition of 1877, and attested to by later observers. Schiaparelli called these canali ("channels"), which was mistranslated into English as "canals". The Irish astronomer Charles E. Burton made some of the earliest drawings of straight-line features on Mars, although his drawings did not match Schiaparelli's.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hello and welcome.
0:23.4	Citation Needed, podcast where we choose a subject,
0:26.0	read a single article about it on Wikipedia and pretend we're experts.
0:29.6	Because this is the internet, and that's how it works now.
0:32.0	I'm Heath, and I'll be hosting this discussion about Mars.
0:35.3	And I'm joined by our Snickers,
0:38.0	Twix, and Milky Way, Tom, Cecil and Noah.
0:40.4	Yeah, I'm not sure if I'll really satisfy you or if you'll just,
0:43.6	you know, want to be done.
0:45.7	But okay, yeah.
0:46.8	Yeah.
0:49.6	And we're only doing left twigs because the right one was cool with the January
0:52.9	six pardons, so we're not doing that one anymore.
0:55.4	Yes, and I got to be the space one.
0:58.4	Nice.
0:59.5	And Eli is here.
1:01.1	Gross.
1:01.4	Gross.
1:02.4	Gross.
1:02.8	The ASMR of candy bars, everybody.
1:06.7	Tried.
1:07.0	I don't work through boomer peanuts to enjoy a sweet treat.
	...

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