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Mars and the social media mania

The planet Mars has been in the news a lot lately, and this week it will be visible crossing the path of Milky Way stars, accompanied by the Moon in the southwest Tuesday night.  More than any other planet, Mars has been at the center of the most extraordinary examples of the mischievous effects of social media.

In 2003, Mars came as close to Earth as it had in recorded history, leading to the erroneous and annually repeated internet legend that the red planet will appear as large as the Moon.

Nearly 80 years ago this week, 23-year-old Orson Welles and his colleagues broadcast a radio rendition of H.G. Wells’ The War of the Worlds reciting events in the novel as if they were a real news broadcast. The idea that aliens were invading from Mars caused mass hysteria. That was October, 1938, nearly 40 years after HG Wells originally penned his novel The War of the Worlds, a scientific romance written in response to several significant events in the 1890s.

In 1894 the scientific community was excited about Mars’ close approach to the Earth. Italian astronomer Giovanni Schiaparelli reported observing ‘channels’ on the surface there.  Because it was commonly held then that Mars was an old and exhausted planet that had once sustained life, it was not unusual for scientists to seek there for evidence, just as NASA’s Curiosity Rover does today. 

Then came increasing militarization in Europe and the cataclysmic eruption of Mt Krakatau. These events fueled the hyper-realism behind HG Wells’ writing style, and the possibility of invasion by aliens caused Mars-mania to reach fever pitch.

Interest in life on Mars sustains into our own time. Over 200,000 people have already applied for a one-way trip to the desolate planet.

Given the enduring interest and mischief stirred by our red neighbor, perhaps the question we need to ask is not “is there life on Mars?” but rather, “What does Mars stir to life within me?”