Transcript

1: In the sky, a vast multitude of stars are visible, and in the center is the bright blue-green shimmer of Mars. In the foreground are the tips of tall stone structures, topped with green plants.
Caption: Just… think of it. For eons of our history, we’d just stare at the stars and wonder. We’d name them, make legends about them, call them gods, and tell stories about them…

2: On the cracked roads of an ancient city, with small walls overflowing with luscious green plants, a robed figure has sat down beside a wooden cart of cut wheat and millet. The figure stares upwards at the starry night sky.
Caption: And it would take so, so long for us to figure it out; to learn that no, that was a whole other world, and it had life, just like ours did.

3: An ancient Roman vase. A black figure of a deer, the goddess Mars, stands on a background of orange.
Caption: We called it so many different things, having no idea that it was home to millions of people with their own names and myths.
To think, we only called it β€œMars” because it was so blue and green that it reminded the Romans of one of their nature gods…

Hover text: Yes, I had to change the entire history and etymology of the word Mars to compensate for the fact that it doesn’t appear red in the sky.