Science Fair Project Encyclopedia
Giovanni Schiaparelli
| 69 Hesperia | April 26 1861 |
Giovanni Virginio Schiaparelli (March 14,1835 – July 4,1910) was an Italian astronomer. He studied at the University of Turin and Berlin Observatory and worked for over forty years at Brera Observatory.
He observed objects in the solar system, and after observing Mars he named the seas and continents. Beginning in 1877 he also believed he had observed long straight features he called canali in Italian, meaning "channels" but famously mistranslated as "canals". Many decades later these canals of Mars were definitively shown to be an optical illusion.
He was also the first to demonstrate that the Perseid and Leonid meteor showers were associated with comets.
He won the Gold Medal of the Royal Astronomical Society in 1872. The asteroid 4062 Schiaparelli , a crater on Mars, and a lunar crater are named in his honour.
His niece Elsa Schiaparelli became a fabled couturier.
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