Skip to content

Cluster index: Robert S. Ball

Mars.

Sir Robert Ball: ‘All that the best telescope can possibly do is to exhibit the planet to us as it would be seen by the unaided eye if it were brought into a distance of 35,000 miles. This will demonstrate that even our greatest telescope cannot be expected to enable us to answer the questions that are so often asked about our neighboring globe. What could we learn of Europe if we had only a bird’s-eye view of it from a height of 35,000 miles, that is to say, from a height which was a dozen times as far as from the shores of Europe to America.’