You’re invited to a captivating Virtual Author Talk with Smithsonian Curator Matt Shindell, Ph.D., as he discusses his latest book, For the Love of Mars: A Human History of the Red Planet.
Event Details:
Date: Monday, June 3, 2024
Time: 1 PM
Location: Streaming Online
Event Overview: Mars has always fascinated and mystified humans. Its vivid color, geologic kinship with Earth, and potential for future settlement make Mars a symbol of space exploration. In For the Love of Mars, Shindell explores Mars’ place in the human imagination, from ancient astrologers to modern scientists.
Join us as Matt Shindell, a National Air and Space Museum curator, takes us on a journey through time, introducing us to historical figures from various eras and cultures who have contributed to our understanding of Mars. Highlights will include:
- Mayan astrologer priests who used Mars in their seasonal calendars and religious ceremonies.
- Babylonian astrologers saw Mars as an omen.
- Scientific Revolution figures who began to comprehend Mars as a world.
- Victorian astronomers searched for signs of intelligent life.
- 20th- and 21st-century scientists who established a technological presence on Mars.
Shindell will also discuss writers and artists from each period who have taken us on imagined journeys to Mars. This talk will show how Mars exploration has evolved and expanded our universe’s knowledge.
About the Author: Matthew Shindell, Ph.D., is a historian of science with expertise in science studies. As the Curator of Earth and Planetary Science at the Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum, he oversees the Museum’s collection of spacecraft and artifacts related to Earth’s and our solar system’s exploration. Shindell co-hosts the Museum’s podcast, AirSpace, and has curated significant exhibitions like Exploring the Planets. He is the author of For the Love of Mars: A Human History of the Red Planet (2023) and several other notable works.
