American astronomer best remembered for his popularization of the existence of Martian “canals,” first reported by 19th-century Italian astronomer Giovanni Virginio Sciaparelli. Through his early career, Lowell was successful in business, finding opportunities to develop cotton mills and electric companies. Between 1883 and 1893 he traveled extensively in the Far East, serving for an extended period as counselor and foreign secretary to the first U.S.- Korea mission. Lowell became an accomplished astronomer later in life and correctly predicted the existence of a planet that caused changes in Neptune’s orbit. That planet was discovered by Clyde Tomabaugh in the 1930s and named Pluto.
Lowell’s fascination with the so-called Martian canals began with a misconception: In 1877, Schiaparelli reported the existence of canali, an Italian word meaning “channels,” not “canals.” What Schiaparelli had actually seen were thin, dark lines, supposedly connecting broad dark areas. Lowell decided that the markings were canals that were meant to carry water to and from the thin polar ice caps and between the dark areas (thought to be seas) on the planet’s surface. He concluded that such canals were evidence of intelligent life on Mars. He founded the Lowell Observatory in Flagstaff, Arizona, in 1894 to observe the Martian surface, and for more than 10 years he charted the dark markings.