La otra Tierra

Home to technologically advanced civilizations or the birthplace of threatening alien invaders, Mars has represented, for more than a century, an alternative to Earth, another world on which to project our hopes and fears. Ever since astronomers Giovanni Schiaparelli and Percival Lowell observed what they believed to be a network of artificial canals on the Martian surface in the 19th century, the dreams and nightmares of all men and women have retained a unique connection to the Red Planet. The other Earth is the story of this connection, that of a true modern myth capable of narrating, in literature and cinema, in research and science, the fears and expectations of our species, sometimes full of enthusiasm for the arrival of the machines, others, terrified by the imminent nuclear war or threatened by a nature that no longer seems to bow to its mandate. From the novels of H. G. Wells and Isaac Asimov to science fiction movies, from the beginnings of modern astronomy to the SpaceX project with which tycoon Elon Musk plans to found the first colony on Mars, the story told in this book It is, after all, our own history, that of a humanity fascinated by the desire to expand its borders, a desire that seems ever closer to becoming a reality.