(A Library of Congress site with public domain maps. Can be a handy resource! The Schiaparelli map was from Wikimedia Commons.)
Surt, Sidra - they are forms of the latin name Syrtis, a marsh, and Syrtis Major was a large marshy area along the coast here. So it is a place on Earth like the others. Are all those names from Earth? #maps #Mars
One more example which I won't illustrate - Look on Schiapareli's map a bit above (south of) Syrtis Major at the left side of the map. See Hellas? That's an easy one - it's Greece. So you get the idea - these Mars names are places on Earth and in particular they come from classical geography - a mixture of real places known to the Greeks and Romans and mythological places from those sources. In Schiaparelli's time any educated European knew these things. #maps #Mars
So... the big question is - are these Schiaparelli names just randomly distributed or is there a pattern behind it? You guessed it - there's a pattern. That's where we are going next. #maps #Mars
We need a bit of a mind-flip to understand how Schiaparelli developed his naming scheme. We start with a map of Mars - let's use a modern one from the Hubble Space Telescope. But Schiaparelli didn't see Mars like this... #maps #Mars #Hubble
No - Schiaparelli saw Mars like this - with south at the top. Until the dawn of the space age most planetary maps were drawn with south at the top as seen in an inverting astronomical telescope. Only when maps might be used for direct physical exploration did the convention change to avoid potential confusion. Rather than turn our screens upside down, let's do a 'rotate 180 degrees' in Photoshop. Simples! #maps #Mars #Hubble
Now we need to look back in time to the classical understanding of the world. How better to do that than with Ptolemy's map of the world known to him at the time? None of Ptolemy's maps survived into the medieval world, but his list of places - a sort of gazetteer - did. 8000 places with his estimates of their latitude and longitude, from which his maps have been reconstructed. See the similarity? No, nor do I, but Schiaparelli found a way to link them. #maps #Mars #Ptolemy
This was how Schiaparelli related Ptolemy's Earth to Mars. The Greek Sun god, Helios, rode a chariot across the sky, rising in the far east of the world and passing over it during the day. At sunset he descended into the far west, moving by boat under or behind the world, back to the east for the next sunrise. So on Mars he would move over the planet, passing places named for regions he saw during his terrestrial daytime journey. #Mars #Helios
This implies that the Martian names would begin with places from the far east of Ptolemy's map, and names would progress towards western places. Our names should be distributed like that. But where does the scheme start on Mars since there is no obvious place to begin? Schiaparelli found a perfect starting point. These are the traditional astronomical symbols for the Sun, Moon and planets. Schiaparelli found the Sun symbol on Mars. #Mars #astronomy
And here it is. A Hubble image of Mars and a 19th Century drawing, both with south at the top. Astronomers had observed a roughly circular marking with a central dark spot. Schiaparelli made it the place where Helios would begin his journey over the planet, distributing names as he went. He named it Solis Lacus, the Lake of the Sun. The modern feature Solis Planum is inside it. #maps #Mars #Shiaparelli
We will do a quick run along Helios's path looking at some basic names to establish the pattern. Then we can explore some interesting places. We start with Helios at Solis Lacus - not a specific place on Earth but somewhere at the easternmost end of Ptolemy's world. "And now the sun, leaving the beauteous mere, sprang up into the brazen heaven to give light to the immortals and to mortal men on the earth" (Homer: Odyssey, book 3, line 1) #maps #Mars #Helios
Moving west, we come to Chryse - the Golden Land - which is Thailand and home to Viking 1 and Pathfinder. Are we going west? Yes, on the terrestrial map. No, on Mars as we define east and west today, but east and west were reversed on those old astronomical maps. When the IAU flipped the maps from south-up to north-up they also flipped east and west to avoid confusion in the new world of direct exploration. That's why the Moon's Mare Orientale is on the western limb. #maps #Mars
Next on our journey we encounter Ganges. You can find it on Schiaparelli's map from a few days ago, just left of the middle. There it's a canal, and my arrow points to the place where the canal joins the dark 'land' of Aurorae Sinus (Dawn Bay). Now the name is used for a dramatic canyon, Ganges Chasma, with several spectacular landslides. It's part of the giant rift valley complex called Valles Marineris. #maps #Mars
Moving right along - we come to Arabia. In this scheme dark areas on Mars are seas and bright areas are land, and indeed much of Arabia does look a bit like Mars from above. The modern Arabia Terra on Mars is a cratered upland area. #maps #Mars
This one might not seem so obvious. Noachis on Mars is Turkey. Why? It's the land of Noah. In the story of the great flood, which was survived only by Noah, his family and two of every animal (a rather serious population bottleneck), Noah's Ark comes to rest on Mt. Ararat in Turkey as the waters subside. #maps #Mars
Back to work! I will spend a few more days looking at Schiaparelli's Mars nomenclature before getting on with the Mars mapping sequence. Today, an obvious one: Hellas, which of course is Greece, north of the Syrtis Major where it should be. #maps #Mars
Now we have a framework for Schiaparelli's names. Helios passes over places on both planets in turn, all very logical. Will it stay that way?
What about places at the right side of the Mars map? Tharsis, for instance. What about places that are not real places on Earth, like Elysium? And we have already seen two names (Syria and Sinai) which are placed on Mars beside Solis Lacus, the whole width of Asia away from their real locations. Don't expect full consistency! #maps #Mars
Now for a quick run through some interesting names on Mars. Here is Hesperia - a rather nondescript place on Schiaparelli's map but important on modern Mars as a lava plain formed in the middle part of Mars history, the Hesperian period. On Earth it's either Spain or some Atlantic islands, usually equated with the Canary Islands, the Hesperides. Hesperus, the evening star, is connected too, related to sunset. #maps #Mars
Elysium... it's not a real place unless you are enjoying a trip to Paris. It is supposed to be in the very far west, so its position out beyond the Mediterranean places, Greece and Syrtis Major, is not too inconsistent with this scheme. #maps #Mars
I find this one particularly satisfying. Where is Tharsis on Earth? The vast volcanic province is so far west that it slipped around the end of the Mars map and appears on the right, not far from Solis Lacus. On Earth it's outside the Pillars of Hercules (look back at the Schiaparelli map to see the Pillars of Hercules named in Latin) - at Tartessus, the Rio Tinto area mined since antiquity and also an analog for the acidic waters of Meridiani Planum. Amazing how things tie together! #maps #Mars
My two favorite interview answers I got a while ago:
- What is the complexity of this algorithm? - Um, I see no complexity, it's quite straightforward.
And: - On what protocol level ports are implemented? [asked in the middle of a talk about HTTP] - Not sure, I think USB?
Those people were not joking, and I'm sure they also weren't dumb, but I still can't get used to the context gap that I have with many people with web development background.
the worst part of all of this has to be electron apps. I can live with all this, cause even they are just figuring it out. What is a sin though, is electron, I cannot stand it. Esp when there are cross platform UI frameworks and many languages u can write it in. Also the sheer ignorance of optimisation also drives me nuts.
Ima hit ya with an "axshually" here... WNW would have been more accurate, but west is essentially correct here, no? Much like the coast of Maine mostly goes east as you head north, the coast near LA mostly goes west as you head north.
Ojai is 75 miles west of Los Angeles. Here is a map. California jogs sharply east at Los Angeles. You should perhaps delete this “gotcha” or correct it, because it does not make you look smart. (I am actually a little surprised at how much your “drag” here makes me question the rest of your journalism.)
your boos mean nothing to me; i've seen what make you cheer!
it works well in the realm of politics because now centrists are a-okay with genocide so long as they believe that the other guy is going to genocide harder.
Today is the day. December 21st marks the 30th Anniversary of Marathon released on Classic Mac OS and later on modern Systems! And to Celebrate, A Medley and another Mashup is now on Andres Bravo Alt! Medley: youtu.be/zDA4nKENfXU Landing Mashup: youtu.be/uiZAWWrADKE #youtube #m30 #marathongame
I’m a fan of returning to Lady Day/annunciation, on the old date of the Spring Equinox, 25 March, for the start of the new year. Make accounting medieval again!
Having dinner in Sydney’s Chinatown I was feeling slightly self conscious about my obvious Americanness until two young women at the next table began deconstructing the lyrics and then full-throatedly singing Down Under.
Phil Stooke
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in reply to Phil Stooke • • •#maps #Mars #Helios
Phil Stooke
in reply to Phil Stooke • • •#maps #Mars
Phil Stooke
in reply to Phil Stooke • • •Phil Stooke
in reply to Phil Stooke • • •Phil Stooke
in reply to Phil Stooke • • •Phil Stooke
in reply to Phil Stooke • • •Phil Stooke
in reply to Phil Stooke • • •Phil Stooke
in reply to Phil Stooke • • •Now we have a framework for Schiaparelli's names. Helios passes over places on both planets in turn, all very logical. Will it stay that way?
What about places at the right side of the Mars map? Tharsis, for instance. What about places that are not real places on Earth, like Elysium? And we have already seen two names (Syria and Sinai) which are placed on Mars beside Solis Lacus, the whole width of Asia away from their real locations. Don't expect full consistency! #maps #Mars
Phil Stooke
in reply to Phil Stooke • • •Phil Stooke
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in reply to Phil Stooke • • •V Martín
in reply to Phil Stooke • • •irrelevant nitpick, but people from Huelva (onubenses) may get offended if you pin Rio Tinto to their adjacent province of Cádiz instead 😉
en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Provin…
en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tharsi…
Phil Stooke
in reply to V Martín • • •