News from Mars : University of Pittsburgh Press : 9780822945529 : 0822945525 : 17 Sep 2019 : "Mass media in the late nineteenth century was full of news from Mars. In the wake of Giovanni Schiaparelli's 1877 discovery of enigmatic dark, straight lines on the red planet, astronomers and the public at large vigorously debated the possibility that it might be inhabited. As rivalling scientific practitioners looked to marshal allies and sway public opinion--through newspapers, periodicals, popular books, exhibitions, and encyclopaedias--they exposed disagreements over how the discipline of astronomyshould be organized and how it should establish acceptable conventions of discourse. News from Mars provides a new account of this extraordinary episode in the history of astronomy, revealing how major transformations in astronomical practice across Britain and America were inextricably tied up with popular scientific culture and a transatlantic news economy that enabled knowledge to travel. As