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Giovanni Schiaparelli

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Astronomer

The Resume

    (March 14, 1835-July 4, 1910)
    Born in Savigliano, Italy
    Director of the Brera Observatory in Milan
    Known for his studies of Mars, Venus, and Mercury
    Drew maps of Mars showing seas and continents, with the continents crisscrossed by channels
    Discovered the asteroid Hesperia (1861)
    Uncle of haute couture designer Elsa Schiaparelli

Why he might be annoying:

    The Italian word for channels, ‘canali,’ was mistranslated as canals in English, producing speculation about a Martian civilization.
    Satellite mapping of Mars conclusively showed that it has neither canals nor channels containing water.
    Ironically, he is primarily remembered for his mistaken beliefs about Mars rather than any of his accurate contributions to astronomy.
    His conclusion that Venus and Mercury both rotate on their axis at the same rate at which they revolve around the Sun, thus always keeping one side facing the Sun, also proved to be erroneous.
    He was the namesake for the European Space Agency’s Schiaparelli lander that crashed into the Martian surface at near-terminal velocity after an erroneous altitude reading caused it to fire braking thrusters for only three seconds instead of the intended thirty seconds (2016).

Why he might not be annoying:

    He thought that the biggest booster of the Martian canals, American astronomer Percival Lowell, had gone well beyond what the data indicated.
    He discovered that the tails of comets always point away from the Sun.
    He demonstrated that meteor showers are the result of the Earth passing through debris left behind by comets. (For example, the Leonid showers are associated with the comet Tempel-Tuttle.)
    He had an asteroid, a lunar crater, and a Martian crater named after him.

Credit: C. Fishel


Featured in the following Annoying Collections:

Year In Review:

    In 2023, Out of 2 Votes: 50.0% Annoying
    In 2022, Out of 2 Votes: 50.0% Annoying
    In 2021, Out of 11 Votes: 72.73% Annoying
    In 2020, Out of 2 Votes: 100% Annoying