Mars in Culture
Mars is one of the most recognisable features in the night sky. Its colour and movement has been studied by cultures throughout history, and Mars remains a staple of pop culture today.
Many ancient civilisations incorporated Mars into their understanding of the universe; you’ve probably heard of some of them. The Roman God of war was called Mars, which is where we get the name Mars from. The symbol used by the Romans to denote Mars is still used today as the male gender marker. In fact, Mars was adapted from its Greek counterpart: Ares. The Greeks believed that Mars was actually a star and that it represented Ares. Lots of other cultures also associated Mars with a God of war. The Babylonians called Mars Nergal, after their god of fire, war, and destruction, and early Hindus called Mars Mangala, the celibate god of war. However, the link between Mars and war is not universal: the ancient Egyptians called it the Horus of the Horizon and the Hebrew name for Mars - Ma’adim - translates to “the one who blushes”. We can still see the influence of these cultures in the naming of Martian features such as the Ma'adim Vallis.
As one of our closest planetary neighbours, Mars has always inspired human speculation. Particularly before the success of any missions to Mars, the idea that aliens live on Mars has inspired many a science-fiction novel. Perhaps the most famous novel centred around martians is H. G. Wells’ The War of the Worlds which tells the story of a martian invasion. The first groups of Martians land in Woking, in front of the book’s narrator, and proceed to invade England in their tripod fighting machines. Since its publication began in 1897, Mars and its inhabitants have become a staple of science fiction.
In 1938, Orson Welles narrated a radio-adaptation of The War of the Worlds which opened with a section that sounded like a news item. Some listeners didn't realise that it was fictional, and this allegedly caused up to a million people to run out in terror. This being said, research has suggested that this fear was not nearly as widespread as contemporary news stories would suggest. Since then, there have been several other adaptations including two movies and three TV series, but none of them have inspired the same panic!
Recent missions to Mars have not found any life on Mars, so many modern Mars-based fiction focuses on human missions to Mars. The most well known example of this is Andy Weir’s The Martian, which was adapted into a movie in 2015 and follows an astronaut as he tries to survive a mission that goes wrong. If you’re interested in the many different ways that authors have written about Mars, you can have a look at our Mars in Fiction reading list, linked here.
Mars has also inspired many different pieces of music. Gustav Holst wrote a series of seven pieces between 1914 and 1916, and each piece is associated with one of the planets in the Solar System. Each piece is strongly tied to the planets’ role in mythology, so it’s no surprise that the piece inspired by Mars is called Mars, the Bringer of War. Another artist who sang about space was David Bowie who performed many space-themed songs, including Life on Mars?. We’ve compiled a playlist of Mars-themed music that you can listen to below https://open.spotify.com/embed/playlist/1Yw5pGdDl0PubQSqbFFOea
As one of our closest planetary neighbours, Mars has always captivated the human imagination. It’s movement and colour have been noted and tracked by humans across history and has inspired the creation of cultural icons. It’s no wonder that missions to Mars are so closely followed! We hope that you’ll be inspired by the mythology of Mars to tune in to some of our events during National Astronomy Week - you can find out more about our programming on this website!