When we want to leave our mark on Mars today, we simply send over a few Rovers to roll around in its red soil. But 150 years ago, scientists had very different plans for contacting the planet, including one French inventor who wanted to use the refracted light of the sun to sear a welcoming message into the Martian desert.
Charles Cros was a reputable inventor who developed several key advancements in color photography and an early version of a phonograph. And he was also convinced that spots of light seen on Mars (probably clouds) were giant Martian cities that we should try to talk to. In 1874 he started work on an ambitious proposal to build a giant mirror that would direct a ray of sunlight towards Mars. But that’s not all: He wanted to use the rays to place a message on Mars, by burning large letters onto the Martian landscape. He spent years petitioning the French government to build this mirror until his death in 1888.
via Gizmodo
Image: Popular Science
