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See how people have imagined life on Mars through history

Scheming invaders. Benevolent vegetarians. Climate refugees. As scientific exploration has advanced, so have creative interpretations of the red planet and its potential residents.

ByNadia Drake
February 9, 2021
10 min read
This story appears in the March 2021 issue of National Geographic magazine.

Jupiter is the king, Uranus is the comedian, Pluto is the underdog. But of all the planetary bodies in our solar system, Mars is clearly the biggest celebrity. Take a visual tour through our evolving fascination with the red planet and see how it has been venerated through the years as a powerful deity, a scientific curiosity, and a pop culture icon.

old painting depicting man in armor and naked woman.
PAINTING BY PAOLO VERONESE (PAOLO CALIARI), METROPOLITAN MUSEUM OF ART, JOHN STEWART KENNEDY FUND, 1910

1570s “Mars and Venus United by Love”

A joining of opposites: Cupid uses a special love knot to bind the Roman god Mars to the goddess Venus in a painting by Paolo Veronese.

longleged creature working over river and shooting guns.
Photograph by CHRONICLE/ALAMY STOCK PHOTO

1898 The War of the Worlds

A witness recounts an epic battle between Martians and Earthlings in H.G. Wells’s now notorious thriller.

planet surface marked with lines and names.
Photograph by LOWELL OBSERVATORY ARCHIVES

1906 Lowell’s Canals

As he drew on his maps (above) and described in a 1906 book, Percival Lowell believed Mars was a dying world covered in irrigation canals.

movie poster with insect-like creature flyings toward Earth.
Photograph by PICTORIAL PRESS LTD/ALAMY STOCK PHOTO

1918 A Trip to Mars

Like many early 20th-century depictions, this Danish silent film focused on Mars’s supposed inhabitants—in this case, benevolent vegetarians.

tall preacher shaking hands with human.
Photograph by CHRONICLE/ALAMY STOCK PHOTO

1939 “The Man From Mars”

Drawn by Frank R. Paul for Fantastic Adventures, this Martian is telepathic and can retract his eyes and nose to protect them from freezing.

Photograph from Apogee/Photofest

1948 Project Mars

In 1948 German rocket engineer Wernher von Braun penned speculative fiction about a human mission to Mars. His work was translated into English and reprinted (sans fictional elements) as The Mars Project, a 1953 book with a stunningly prescient mission concept.

movie poster.
Photograph by PICTORIAL PRESS LTD/ALAMY STOCK PHOTO

1951 Flight to Mars

In this sci-fi drama, scientists arrive on Mars to find a planet populated by a subterranean, dying race similar to humans—who may be plotting a desperate invasion of Earth.

blurry photo in reddish color with dark spots.
Photograph by E.C. SLIPHER, LOWELL OBSERVATORY ARCHIVES

1954 Full Color

Astronomer E.C. Slipher took this image from South Africa; he published his Photographic Story of Mars (1905- 1961) in 1962.

b&W blurry photo of planet surface.
Photograph by NASA

1965 Mariner 4

When this spacecraft flew by Mars, it snapped images of a planet that looked disappointingly like the moon: cratered and sterile, without any signs of alien life.

painting of vegetation on Mars.
Photograph from NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC IMAGE COLLECTION

1967 Sagan’s Vision

For National Geographic, Carl Sagan imagined radiation-resistant Martians shielded by glassy shells, eating cabbage-like plants that fold up at night.

hi-res b&w photo of Mars surface with visible part part of rover
Photograph by NASA

1976 Mars Vikings

NASA’s Viking mission included two orbiters and two landers, the first to take high-resolution images of Mars from its desolate surface.

an alien with huge head in glass helmet.

1996 Mars Attacks!

Directed by Tim Burton, this film poked fun at 1950s science fiction movies. In it, murderous Martians terrorize Earth until they’re defeated by a country song.

man in space suit sitting on send.
Photograph by GENRE FILMS/INTERNATIONAL TRADERS/MID ATLANTIC FILMS/20TH CENTURY/ALBUM, ALAMY STOCK PHOTO

2015 The Martian

In Andy Weir’s futuristic survival tale, astronaut Mark Watney, played by Matt Damon, is abandoned on Mars after crewmates mistake him for dead.

silver rocket vertical on the ground under blue sky.
Photograph by LOREN ELLIOTT, GETTY IMAGES

2019 Starship

If SpaceX CEO Elon Musk has his way, a version of the retro-looking launch vehicle seen here being built in Texas will one day shuttle humans to the moon, Mars, and beyond.

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