170 years ago today, March 13, 1855 (January 25, 1855 in the lunar calendar), American astronomer Percival Lowell was born. Percival Lowell observes Mars Percival Lowell (March 13, 1855-November 16, 1916) was an American astronomer. Lowell is not a professional astronomer. He was born into a prestigious family in Boston. He graduated from Harvard University in 1876, majoring in mathematics. After graduation, he traveled to the Far East and also visited China. When he heard about the Martian canals discovered by Giovanni Schiapalini, he became very interested in Mars. In 1894, he used private money to establish the Lowell Observatory in Flagstaff, Arizona, USA, to study Mars. Flegstaff is very high and there are many cloudless days. Lowell drew numerous maps of the surface of Mars and published them. In his later years, Lowell turned his interests to the search for the ninth planet in the solar system beyond Neptune. After his death, the Lowell Observatory continued the work and actually found Pluto in 1930. Pluto's abbreviation PL contains the initials of his name to show the memory of his discoverer Tombo.