Mars in fiction

High school (ages 12+)
Space & Astronomy

Name:

Date:

Step 1 · Read the article

Open the article and read it at the level above. Then answer the questions below in your own words.

https://smallwhale.org/articles/mars-in-fiction

Write what each word means, using the article.

Do not copy the article. Write two things you learned, the way you would explain them to a friend.

Answers below are taken from the article’s stored facts, so they match what the student read.

1. What was Mars like in early stories?Early stories imagined Mars as a world with intelligent beings, a mysterious frontier, and a place of pure speculation.
2. Why did Mars become a popular setting in the late 19th century?After the Moon was shown to be barren, Mars became the main focus for stories, with utopian visions and canal theories.

Utopian Fiction: Literary genre depicting ideal societies, often used to explore philosophical and social ideas in fictional settings.
Terraforming: The hypothetical process of planetary engineering aimed at modifying a planet's atmosphere, temperature, surface topography, and ecology to be similar to Earth's.