For a time in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, it was erroneously believed that there were
canals on Mars. These were a network of long straight lines in the equatorial regions from 60° N. to 60° S. Lat. on the
planet Mars. They were first described by the Italian astronomer
Giovanni Schiaparelli during the
opposition of 1877, and confirmed by later observers. Schiaparelli called these
canali, which was translated into English as "canals". The Irish astronomer
Charles E. Burton made some of the earliest drawings of straight-line features on Mars, although his drawings did not match Schiaparelli's. By the early 20th century, improved astronomical observations revealed the "canals" to be an
optical illusion, and modern high resolution mapping of the Martian surface by spacecraft shows no such features.