The World’s Largest Tropical Wetland Has Become an Inferno

This year, roughly a quarter of the vast Pantanal wetland in Brazil, one of the most biodiverse places on Earth, has burned in wildfires worsened by climate change. What happens to a rich and unique biome when so much is destroyed?

The unprecedented fires in the wetland have attracted less attention than blazes in Australia, the Western United States and the Amazon, its celebrity sibling to the north. But while the Pantanal is not a global household name, tourists in the know flock there because it is home to exceptionally high concentrations of breathtaking wildlife: Jaguars, tapirs, endangered giant otters and bright blue hyacinth macaws. Like a vast tub, the wetland swells with water during the rainy season and empties out during the dry months. Fittingly, this rhythm has a name that evokes a beating heart: the flood pulse.

The wetland, which is larger than Greece and stretches over parts of Brazil, Paraguay and Bolivia, also offers unseen gifts to a vast swath of South America by regulating the water cycle upon which life depends. Its countless swamps, lagoons and tributaries purify water and help prevent floods and droughts. They also store untold amounts of carbon, helping to stabilize the climate.

For centuries, ranchers have used fire to clear fields and new land. But this year, drought worsened by climate change turned the wetlands into a tinderbox and the fires raged out of control. “The extent of fires is staggering,” said Douglas C. Morton, who leads the Biospheric Sciences Laboratory at the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center and studies fire and food production in South America. “When you wipe out a quarter of a biome, you create all kinds of unprecedented circumstances.” His analysis showed that at least 22 percent of the Pantanal in Brazil has burned since January, with the worst fires, in August and September, blazing for two months straight.

Naturally occurring fire plays a role in the Pantanal, in addition to the burning by ranchers. The flames are usually contained by the landscape’s mosaic of water. But this year’s drought sucked these natural barriers dry. The fires are far worse than any since satellite records began.

The Brazilian federal police are investigating the fires, some of which appear to have been illegally targeting forests.

Because ecosystems are interconnected, the well-being of the wetland is at the mercy of the booming agriculture in the surrounding highlands. The huge fields of soy, other grains and cattle — commodities traded around the world — cause soil erosion that flows into the Pantanal, clogging its rivers so severely that some have become accidental dams, robbing the area downstream of water.

But perhaps the most ominous danger comes from even further afield: climate change. The effects that models have predicted, a much hotter Pantanal alternating between severe drought and extreme rainfall, are already being felt, scientists say. A study published this year found that climate change poses “a critical threat” to the ecosystem, damaging biodiversity and impairing its ability to help regulate water for the continent and carbon for the world. In less than 20 years, it found that the northern Pantanal may turn into a savanna or even an arid zone. “We are digging our grave,” said Karl-Ludwig Schuchmann, an ecologist with Brazil’s National Institute of Science and Technology in Wetlands and one of the study’s authors.

To save the Pantanal, scientists offer solutions: Reduce climate change immediately. Practice sustainable agriculture in and around the wetland. Pay ranchers to preserve forests and other natural areas on their land. Increase ecotourism. Do not divert the Pantanal’s waters, because its flood pulse is its life.

Adapted from: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/13.

Un error positivo

Montero Glez

Hay errores que cuestan vidas. Lo estamos viviendo. Pero no vamos a entrar ahora a hacer juicios de valor sobre la manera de manejar una crisis de dimensiones virulentas. Y no porque nuestros representantes políticos no merezcan tales juicios, sino porque hace falta un poco más de aire entre tanta contaminación mediática. Con tales principios, vamos a contar cómo un error de traducción dio lugar a un conjunto de libros de astronomía popular que, a su vez, inspirarían algunas de las novelas de ciencia ficción más importantes de todos los tiempos.

Lowell aseguraba que en Marte existía vida inteligente pues, sin ella, no se habría podido construir toda aquella red de acequias para transportar agua.

Nos referimos a los episodios escritos por Percival Lowell (1855-1916), un excéntrico millonario norteamericano con vicios de astrónomo que afirmaba que existían canales artificiales en Marte y, por lo tanto, vida extraterrestre. Para demostrarlo, construyó un observatorio privado en Arizona que hoy permanece en activo. Se trata del Observatorio Lowell, desde el cual, en 1930 se descubriría un planeta enano que recibió el nombre de Plutón.

Pero volvamos a la Tierra donde, en vida de Lowell, el astrónomo italiano Giovanni Virginio Schiaparelli observó con su telescopio el planeta Marte. Tenía la intención de estudiarlo a fondo y, detallando el planeta rojo, pudo comprobar cómo una densa capa de líneas se extendía sobre la superficie. Schiaparelli las denominó “canali” y con ello, publicó el mapa del planeta Marte en 1888. Fue un trabajo pionero de la astronomía que despertó la curiosidad de muchos aficionados entre los que se encontraba el excéntrico Percival Lowell.

Debido a un error en la traducción del trabajo de Schiaparelli se inició, sin querer, todo un género de novelas. Los “canali” que observó Schiaparelli fueron vertidos en inglés como “canals” en vez de como “channels”, tal y como hubiese sido lo correcto. De esta manera, la palabra “canals” implica una construcción artificial mientras que la palabra “channels” se refiere a un accidente natural.

A partir de este error, Percival Lowell se dispuso a encontrar huellas extraterrestres en el planeta rojo. Hay que recordar que un planeta es una forma espontánea y lo que Lowell pretendía era encontrar formas vivas que lo habitasen. Aunque no las encontró, las imaginó hasta convertirlas en certezas científicas. Ajustando su ojo al telescopio, echó a volar su imaginación cuando observó los numerosos canales que cubrían la superficie de Marte, llegando a afirmar que el planeta estaba habitado por una antigua civilización.

Aseguraba que en Marte existía vida inteligente pues, sin ella, no se habría podido construir toda aquella red de acequias para transportar agua. Con estas cosas publicaría Mars (1895), Mars and Its Canals (1906) y The Genesis of the Planets (1916). Su serie sobre el planeta rojo inspiraría a Herbert George Wells para escribir “La Guerra de los Mundos” y, posteriormente, cuando ya se desveló que los estudios de Percival carecían de rigor científico, Ray Bradbury se sirvió de ellos para sus “Crónicas Marcianas”. De esta manera, tratando las contradicciones a partir de un error, se consiguió la coherencia en la ficción.

Montero Glez. Periódico El País, 26/03/2020.

The World’s Largest Tropical Wetland Has Become an Inferno

This year, roughly a quarter of the vast Pantanal wetland in Brazil, one of the most biodiverse places on Earth, has burned in wildfires worsened by climate change. What happens to a rich and unique biome when so much is destroyed?

The unprecedented fires in the wetland have attracted less attention than blazes in Australia, the Western United States and the Amazon, its celebrity sibling to the north. But while the Pantanal is not a global household name, tourists in the know flock there because it is home to exceptionally high concentrations of breathtaking wildlife: Jaguars, tapirs, endangered giant otters and bright blue hyacinth macaws. Like a vast tub, the wetland swells with water during the rainy season and empties out during the dry months. Fittingly, this rhythm has a name that evokes a beating heart: the flood pulse.

The wetland, which is larger than Greece and stretches over parts of Brazil, Paraguay and Bolivia, also offers unseen gifts to a vast swath of South America by regulating the water cycle upon which life depends. Its countless swamps, lagoons and tributaries purify water and help prevent floods and droughts. They also store untold amounts of carbon, helping to stabilize the climate.

For centuries, ranchers have used fire to clear fields and new land. But this year, drought worsened by climate change turned the wetlands into a tinderbox and the fires raged out of control. “The extent of fires is staggering,” said Douglas C. Morton, who leads the Biospheric Sciences Laboratory at the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center and studies fire and food production in South America. “When you wipe out a quarter of a biome, you create all kinds of unprecedented circumstances.” His analysis showed that at least 22 percent of the Pantanal in Brazil has burned since January, with the worst fires, in August and September, blazing for two months straight.

Naturally occurring fire plays a role in the Pantanal, in addition to the burning by ranchers. The flames are usually contained by the landscape’s mosaic of water. But this year’s drought sucked these natural barriers dry. The fires are far worse than any since satellite records began.

The Brazilian federal police are investigating the fires, some of which appear to have been illegally targeting forests.

Because ecosystems are interconnected, the well-being of the wetland is at the mercy of the booming agriculture in the surrounding highlands. The huge fields of soy, other grains and cattle — commodities traded around the world — cause soil erosion that flows into the Pantanal, clogging its rivers so severely that some have become accidental dams, robbing the area downstream of water.

But perhaps the most ominous danger comes from even further afield: climate change. The effects that models have predicted, a much hotter Pantanal alternating between severe drought and extreme rainfall, are already being felt, scientists say. A study published this year found that climate change poses “a critical threat” to the ecosystem, damaging biodiversity and impairing its ability to help regulate water for the continent and carbon for the world. In less than 20 years, it found that the northern Pantanal may turn into a savanna or even an arid zone. “We are digging our grave,” said Karl-Ludwig Schuchmann, an ecologist with Brazil’s National Institute of Science and Technology in Wetlands and one of the study’s authors.

To save the Pantanal, scientists offer solutions: Reduce climate change immediately. Practice sustainable agriculture in and around the wetland. Pay ranchers to preserve forests and other natural areas on their land. Increase ecotourism. Do not divert the Pantanal’s waters, because its flood pulse is its life.

Adapted from: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/13.

LA LÉGENDE DU MONT SAINT-MICHEL

Extrait adapté du conte de Guy de Maupassant

“Je l'avais vu d'abord de Cancale ce château de fées planté dans la mer. Je l'avais vu confusément, ombre grise dressée sur le ciel brumeux.

Je le revis d'Avranches, au soleil couchant. L'immensité des sables était rouge, l'horizon était rouge, toute la baie démesurée était rouge; seule, l'abbaye escarpée, poussée là-bas, loin de la terre, comme un manoir fantastique, stupéfiante comme un palais de rêve, invraisemblablement étrange et belle, restait presque noire dans les pourpres du jour mourant.

J'allai vers elle le lendemain dès l'aube, à travers les sables, l'oeil tendu sur ce bijoux monstrueux, grand comme une montagne, ciselé comme un camée et vaporeux comme une mousseline. Plus j'approchais, plus je me sentais soulevé d'admiration, car rien au monde peut-être n'est plus étonnant et plus parfait.

Et j'errai, surpris comme si j'avais découvert l'habitation d'un dieu à travers ces salles portées par des colonnes légères ou pesantes, à travers ces couloirs percés à jour, levant mes yeux émerveillés sur ces clochetons qui semblaient des fusées parties vers le ciel et sur tout cet emmêlement de tourelles, de gargouilles, d'ornements sveltes et charmants, feu d'artifice de pierre, dentelle de granit, chef-d'oeuvre d'architecture colossale et délicate.

Comme je restais en extase, un paysan bas-normand m'aborda et me raconta l’histoire: chaque village de France est placé sous l'invocation d'un saint protecteur, modifié à l'image des habitants. Or saint Michel veille sur la Basse-Normandie, saint Michel, l'ange et victorieux, le porte-glaive, le héros du ciel, le triomphant, veille pour toujours sur le mont normand qui porte son nom.

La légende du Mont Saint-Michel, in Clair de Lune, Guy de Maupassant, Ed. Monnier, 1883.

The World’s Largest Tropical Wetland Has Become an Inferno

This year, roughly a quarter of the vast Pantanal wetland in Brazil, one of the most biodiverse places on Earth, has burned in wildfires worsened by climate change. What happens to a rich and unique biome when so much is destroyed?

The unprecedented fires in the wetland have attracted less attention than blazes in Australia, the Western United States and the Amazon, its celebrity sibling to the north. But while the Pantanal is not a global household name, tourists in the know flock there because it is home to exceptionally high concentrations of breathtaking wildlife: Jaguars, tapirs, endangered giant otters and bright blue hyacinth macaws. Like a vast tub, the wetland swells with water during the rainy season and empties out during the dry months. Fittingly, this rhythm has a name that evokes a beating heart: the flood pulse.

The wetland, which is larger than Greece and stretches over parts of Brazil, Paraguay and Bolivia, also offers unseen gifts to a vast swath of South America by regulating the water cycle upon which life depends. Its countless swamps, lagoons and tributaries purify water and help prevent floods and droughts. They also store untold amounts of carbon, helping to stabilize the climate.

For centuries, ranchers have used fire to clear fields and new land. But this year, drought worsened by climate change turned the wetlands into a tinderbox and the fires raged out of control. “The extent of fires is staggering,” said Douglas C. Morton, who leads the Biospheric Sciences Laboratory at the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center and studies fire and food production in South America. “When you wipe out a quarter of a biome, you create all kinds of unprecedented circumstances.” His analysis showed that at least 22 percent of the Pantanal in Brazil has burned since January, with the worst fires, in August and September, blazing for two months straight.

Naturally occurring fire plays a role in the Pantanal, in addition to the burning by ranchers. The flames are usually contained by the landscape’s mosaic of water. But this year’s drought sucked these natural barriers dry. The fires are far worse than any since satellite records began.

The Brazilian federal police are investigating the fires, some of which appear to have been illegally targeting forests.

Because ecosystems are interconnected, the well-being of the wetland is at the mercy of the booming agriculture in the surrounding highlands. The huge fields of soy, other grains and cattle — commodities traded around the world — cause soil erosion that flows into the Pantanal, clogging its rivers so severely that some have become accidental dams, robbing the area downstream of water.

But perhaps the most ominous danger comes from even further afield: climate change. The effects that models have predicted, a much hotter Pantanal alternating between severe drought and extreme rainfall, are already being felt, scientists say. A study published this year found that climate change poses “a critical threat” to the ecosystem, damaging biodiversity and impairing its ability to help regulate water for the continent and carbon for the world. In less than 20 years, it found that the northern Pantanal may turn into a savanna or even an arid zone. “We are digging our grave,” said Karl-Ludwig Schuchmann, an ecologist with Brazil’s National Institute of Science and Technology in Wetlands and one of the study’s authors.

To save the Pantanal, scientists offer solutions: Reduce climate change immediately. Practice sustainable agriculture in and around the wetland. Pay ranchers to preserve forests and other natural areas on their land. Increase ecotourism. Do not divert the Pantanal’s waters, because its flood pulse is its life.

Adapted from: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/13.

LA LÉGENDE DU MONT SAINT-MICHEL

Extrait adapté du conte de Guy de Maupassant

“Je l'avais vu d'abord de Cancale ce château de fées planté dans la mer. Je l'avais vu confusément, ombre grise dressée sur le ciel brumeux.

Je le revis d'Avranches, au soleil couchant. L'immensité des sables était rouge, l'horizon était rouge, toute la baie démesurée était rouge; seule, l'abbaye escarpée^A, poussée là-bas, loin de la terre, comme un manoir fantastique, stupéfiante comme un palais de rêve, invraisemblablement étrange et belle, restait presque noire dans les pourpres du jour mourant^A.

J'allai vers elle le lendemain dès l'aube, à travers les sables, l'oeil tendu sur ce bijoux monstrueux, grand comme une montagne, ciselé comme un camée et vaporeux comme une mousseline. Plus j'approchais, plus je me sentais soulevé d'admiration, car rien au monde peut-être n'est plus étonnant et plus parfait.

Et j'errai, surpris comme si j'avais découvert l'habitation d'un dieu à travers ces salles portées par des colonnes légères ou pesantes, à travers ces couloirs percés à jour, levant mes yeux émerveillés sur ces clochetons qui semblaient des fusées parties vers le ciel et sur tout cet emmêlement de tourelles, de gargouilles, d'ornements sveltes et charmants, feu d'artifice de pierre, dentelle de granit, chef-d'oeuvre d'architecture colossale et délicate.

Comme je restais en extase, un paysan bas-normand m'aborda et me raconta l’histoire: chaque village de France est placé sous l'invocation d'un saint protecteur, modifié à l'image des habitants. Or saint Michel veille sur la Basse-Normandie, saint Michel, l'ange et victorieux, le porte-glaive, le héros du ciel, le triomphant, veille pour toujours sur le mont normand qui porte son nom.

La légende du Mont Saint-Michel, in Clair de Lune, Guy de Maupassant, Ed. Monnier, 1883.

Un error positivo

Montero Glez

Hay errores que cuestan vidas. Lo estamos viviendo. Pero no vamos a entrar ahora a hacer juicios de valor sobre la manera de manejar una crisis de dimensiones virulentas. Y no porque nuestros representantes políticos no merezcan tales juicios, sino porque hace falta un poco más de aire entre tanta contaminación mediática. Con tales principios, vamos a contar cómo un error de traducción dio lugar a un conjunto de libros de astronomía popular que, a su vez, inspirarían algunas de las novelas de ciencia ficción más importantes de todos los tiempos.

Lowell aseguraba que en Marte existía vida inteligente pues, sin ella, no se habría podido construir toda aquella red de acequias para transportar agua.

Nos referimos a los episodios escritos por Percival Lowell (1855-1916), un excéntrico millonario norteamericano con vicios de astrónomo que afirmaba que existían canales artificiales en Marte y, por lo tanto, vida extraterrestre. Para demostrarlo, construyó un observatorio privado en Arizona que hoy permanece en activo. Se trata del Observatorio Lowell, desde el cual, en 1930 se descubriría un planeta enano que recibió el nombre de Plutón.

Pero volvamos a la Tierra donde, en vida de Lowell, el astrónomo italiano Giovanni Virginio Schiaparelli observó con su telescopio el planeta Marte. Tenía la intención de estudiarlo a fondo y, detallando el planeta rojo, pudo comprobar cómo una densa capa de líneas se extendía sobre la superficie. Schiaparelli las denominó “canali” y con ello, publicó el mapa del planeta Marte en 1888. Fue un trabajo pionero de la astronomía que despertó la curiosidad de muchos aficionados entre los que se encontraba el excéntrico Percival Lowell.

Debido a un error en la traducción del trabajo de Schiaparelli se inició, sin querer, todo un género de novelas. Los “canali” que observó Schiaparelli fueron vertidos en inglés como “canals” en vez de como “channels”, tal y como hubiese sido lo correcto. De esta manera, la palabra “canals” implica una construcción artificial mientras que la palabra “channels” se refiere a un accidente natural.

A partir de este error, Percival Lowell se dispuso a encontrar huellas extraterrestres en el planeta rojo. Hay que recordar que un planeta es una forma espontánea y lo que Lowell pretendía era encontrar formas vivas que lo habitasen. Aunque no las encontró, las imaginó hasta convertirlas en certezas científicas. Ajustando su ojo al telescopio, echó a volar su imaginación cuando observó los numerosos canales que cubrían la superficie de Marte, llegando a afirmar que el planeta estaba habitado por una antigua civilización.

Aseguraba que en Marte existía vida inteligente pues, sin ella, no se habría podido construir toda aquella red de acequias para transportar agua. Con estas cosas publicaría Mars (1895), Mars and Its Canals (1906) y The Genesis of the Planets (1916). Su serie sobre el planeta rojo inspiraría a Herbert George Wells para escribir “La Guerra de los Mundos” y, posteriormente, cuando ya se desveló que los estudios de Percival carecían de rigor científico, Ray Bradbury se sirvió de ellos para sus “Crónicas Marcianas”. De esta manera, tratando las contradicciones a partir de un error, se consiguió la coherencia en la ficción.

Montero Glez. Periódico El País, 26/03/2020.

The World’s Largest Tropical Wetland Has Become an Inferno

This year, roughly a quarter of the vast Pantanal wetland in Brazil, one of the most biodiverse places on Earth, has burned in wildfires worsened by climate change. What happens to a rich and unique biome when so much is destroyed?

The unprecedented fires in the wetland have attracted less attention than blazes in Australia, the Western United States and the Amazon, its celebrity sibling to the north. But while the Pantanal is not a global household name, tourists in the know flock there because it is home to exceptionally high concentrations of breathtaking wildlife: Jaguars, tapirs, endangered giant otters and bright blue hyacinth macaws. Like a vast tub, the wetland swells with water during the rainy season and empties out during the dry months. Fittingly, this rhythm has a name that evokes a beating heart: the flood pulse.

The wetland, which is larger than Greece and stretches over parts of Brazil, Paraguay and Bolivia, also offers unseen gifts to a vast swath of South America by regulating the water cycle upon which life depends. Its countless swamps, lagoons and tributaries purify water and help prevent floods and droughts. They also store untold amounts of carbon, helping to stabilize the climate.

For centuries, ranchers have used fire to clear fields and new land. But this year, drought worsened by climate change turned the wetlands into a tinderbox and the fires raged out of control. “The extent of fires is staggering,” said Douglas C. Morton, who leads the Biospheric Sciences Laboratory at the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center and studies fire and food production in South America. “When you wipe out a quarter of a biome, you create all kinds of unprecedented circumstances.” His analysis showed that at least 22 percent of the Pantanal in Brazil has burned since January, with the worst fires, in August and September, blazing for two months straight.

Naturally occurring fire plays a role in the Pantanal, in addition to the burning by ranchers. The flames are usually contained by the landscape’s mosaic of water. But this year’s drought sucked these natural barriers dry. The fires are far worse than any since satellite records began.

The Brazilian federal police are investigating the fires, some of which appear to have been illegally targeting forests.

Because ecosystems are interconnected, the well-being of the wetland is at the mercy of the booming agriculture in the surrounding highlands. The huge fields of soy, other grains and cattle — commodities traded around the world — cause soil erosion that flows into the Pantanal, clogging its rivers so severely that some have become accidental dams, robbing the area downstream of water.

But perhaps the most ominous danger comes from even further afield: climate change. The effects that models have predicted, a much hotter Pantanal alternating between severe drought and extreme rainfall, are already being felt, scientists say. A study published this year found that climate change poses “a critical threat” to the ecosystem, damaging biodiversity and impairing its ability to help regulate water for the continent and carbon for the world. In less than 20 years, it found that the northern Pantanal may turn into a savanna or even an arid zone. “We are digging our grave,” said Karl-Ludwig Schuchmann, an ecologist with Brazil’s National Institute of Science and Technology in Wetlands and one of the study’s authors.

To save the Pantanal, scientists offer solutions: Reduce climate change immediately. Practice sustainable agriculture in and around the wetland. Pay ranchers to preserve forests and other natural areas on their land. Increase ecotourism. Do not divert the Pantanal’s waters, because its flood pulse is its life.

Adapted from: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/13.

LA LÉGENDE DU MONT SAINT-MICHEL

Extrait adapté du conte de Guy de Maupassant

“Je l'avais vu d'abord de Cancale ce château de fées planté dans la mer. Je l'avais vu confusément, ombre grise dressée sur le ciel brumeux.

Je le revis d'Avranches, au soleil couchant. L'immensité des sables était rouge, l'horizon était rouge, toute la baie démesurée était rouge; seule, l'abbaye escarpée, poussée là-bas, loin de la terre, comme un manoir fantastique, stupéfiante comme un palais de rêve, invraisemblablement étrange et belle, restait presque noire dans les pourpres du jour mourant.

J'allai vers elle le lendemain dès l'aube, à travers les sables, l'oeil tendu sur ce bijoux monstrueux, grand comme une montagne, ciselé comme un camée et vaporeux comme une mousseline. Plus j'approchais, plus je me sentais soulevé d'admiration, car rien au monde peut-être n'est plus étonnant et plus parfait.

Et j'errai, surpris comme si j'avais découvert l'habitation d'un dieu à travers ces salles portées par des colonnes légères ou pesantes, à travers ces couloirs percés à jour, levant mes yeux émerveillés sur ces clochetons qui semblaient des fusées parties vers le ciel et sur tout cet emmêlement de tourelles, de gargouilles, d'ornements sveltes et charmants, feu d'artifice de pierre, dentelle de granit, chef-d'oeuvre d'architecture colossale et délicate.

Comme je restais en extase, un paysan bas-normand m'aborda et me raconta l’histoire: chaque village de France est placé sous l'invocation d'un saint protecteur, modifié à l'image des habitants. Or saint Michel veille sur la Basse-Normandie, saint Michel, l'ange et victorieux, le porte-glaive, le héros du ciel, le triomphant, veille pour toujours sur le mont normand qui porte son nom.

La légende du Mont Saint-Michel, in Clair de Lune, Guy de Maupassant, Ed. Monnier, 1883.

Un error positivo

Montero Glez

Hay errores que cuestan vidas. Lo estamos viviendo. Pero no vamos a entrar ahora a hacer juicios de valor sobre la manera de manejar una crisis de dimensiones virulentas. Y no porque nuestros representantes políticos no merezcan tales juicios, sino porque hace falta un poco más de aire entre tanta contaminación mediática. Con tales principios, vamos a contar cómo un error de traducción dio lugar a un conjunto de libros de astronomía popular que, a su vez, inspirarían algunas de las novelas de ciencia ficción más importantes de todos los tiempos.

Lowell aseguraba que en Marte existía vida inteligente pues, sin ella, no se habría podido construir toda aquella red de acequias para transportar agua.

Nos referimos a los episodios escritos por Percival Lowell (1855-1916), un excéntrico millonario norteamericano con vicios de astrónomo que afirmaba que existían canales artificiales en Marte y, por lo tanto, vida extraterrestre. Para demostrarlo, construyó un observatorio privado en Arizona que hoy permanece en activo. Se trata del Observatorio Lowell, desde el cual, en 1930 se descubriría un planeta enano que recibió el nombre de Plutón.

Pero volvamos a la Tierra donde, en vida de Lowell, el astrónomo italiano Giovanni Virginio Schiaparelli observó con su telescopio el planeta Marte. Tenía la intención de estudiarlo a fondo y, detallando el planeta rojo, pudo comprobar cómo una densa capa de líneas se extendía sobre la superficie. Schiaparelli las denominó “canali” y con ello, publicó el mapa del planeta Marte en 1888. Fue un trabajo pionero de la astronomía que despertó la curiosidad de muchos aficionados entre los que se encontraba el excéntrico Percival Lowell.

Debido a un error en la traducción del trabajo de Schiaparelli se inició, sin querer, todo un género de novelas. Los “canali” que observó Schiaparelli fueron vertidos en inglés como “canals” en vez de como “channels”, tal y como hubiese sido lo correcto. De esta manera, la palabra “canals” implica una construcción artificial mientras que la palabra “channels” se refiere a un accidente natural.

A partir de este error, Percival Lowell se dispuso a encontrar huellas extraterrestres en el planeta rojo. Hay que recordar que un planeta es una forma espontánea y lo que Lowell pretendía era encontrar formas vivas que lo habitasen. Aunque no las encontró, las imaginó hasta convertirlas en certezas científicas. Ajustando su ojo al telescopio, echó a volar su imaginación cuando observó los numerosos canales que cubrían la superficie de Marte, llegando a afirmar que el planeta estaba habitado por una antigua civilización.

Aseguraba que en Marte existía vida inteligente pues, sin ella, no se habría podido construir toda aquella red de acequias para transportar agua. Con estas cosas publicaría Mars (1895), Mars and Its Canals (1906) y The Genesis of the Planets (1916). Su serie sobre el planeta rojo inspiraría a Herbert George Wells para escribir “La Guerra de los Mundos” y, posteriormente, cuando ya se desveló que los estudios de Percival carecían de rigor científico, Ray Bradbury se sirvió de ellos para sus “Crónicas Marcianas”. De esta manera, tratando las contradicciones a partir de un error, se consiguió la coherencia en la ficción.

Montero Glez. Periódico El País, 26/03/2020.