Vale Percival

The 1909–10 opposition of Mars was clearly a defeat for Lowell, though of course, being Lowell, he never would admit it. At the March 30, 1910, meeting of the BAA, Lowell argued that it was completely expected and normal for the Martian albedo features to appear so faint during much of 1909:That meant that there was not much to expect regarding Mars until 1911, when Mars began to retreat through a series of more and more unfavorable oppositions, reaching a low point with the aphelic opposition of 1916. Not until August 1924 would Mars be as close to the Earth as it had been in September 1909. There seemed to be little hope of further progress being made either by those who hoped to prove the existence of canals in Lowell’s sense, i.e., irrigation channels, or the skeptics’ program of demolishing these “whimsical provocations of truth,” as Antoniadi described them to Barnard.