Celebrating Mars, Then and Now

On March 14, 2009, it was the 174th birthday of the famous Italian astronomer and cartographer, Giovanni Schiaparelli. Giovanni had created a map of mars with what was thought to be bodies of water and signs of potential areas where Martians might have once roamed. Google Earth now has a feature that you can view the planet of Mars now and back to the map that Giovanni created. Under an extensive review, it was found that the bodies of water and the areas where Martians might have been turned out to be just an optical illusion.

http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2009/03/celebrating-mars-then-and-now.html