If you like the ones in Amsterdam, you’ll love the Martian Canals! A slight caveat: they don’t exist. Let me explain.

In the late 19th and early 20th centuries astronomers mistakenly believed they had discovered "canals" on the Red Planet. Using the high-tech gear of their day (early telescopes without photography), they spotted these so-called canals, inspiring grand visions of interstellar waterways.

The Italian astronomer Giovanni Schiaparelli kicked off the trend during 1877, referring to these features as "canali," or "channels." But English-speaking astronomers got lost in translation and started calling them "canals."

In the 20th century, NASA’s Mariner IV put speculation to bed when it photographed the planet and found that there were no canals at all. On closer inspection, it had just been an optical illusion.