We tend to picture people of the past as a bunch of bumbling cavemen to whom modern technology would seem frightening and confusing. And yet, some of their ancient technologies have turned out to be at least as good as, if not better than, the stuff our fancy-pants scientists today have developed. No, we're not talking about "fire" and "the wheel" -- we're talking about ...

6 Medieval Glass Techniques Going to Mars

NASA/JPL-Caltech/Cornell

Continue Reading Below Advertisement

Humans have the technology to send machines to explore Mars, but apparently we have no idea what it looks like after we get there. Due to having almost no ozone layer, the Martian surface is constantly bathed in UV radiation, which on top of driving up the price of sunscreen also alters the photographs taken by the Mars rovers so that the colors are faded like we used some shitty cosmic Instagram filter.

NASA/JPL-Caltech/Cornell Univ

We wanted a red planet. This is feces vindaloo.

Continue Reading Below Advertisement

To solve this problem, scientists needed to come up with a new form of glass that would stand up to the harsh ultraviolet bombardment of the Martian atmosphere. And by "new," we mean "new to us" -- but in reality, it's several centuries old. They've retrofitted the rovers' cameras with the type of stained glass found in medieval cathedral windows. Glass frescoes from medieval artists have been bombarded by the sun's rays over the ages, yet show little to no evidence of fading. That's because the glass made by artisans back in the day was mixed with gold and silver in such a way as to inadvertently block UV radiation, effectively forming what we would call "nanotechnology" now, but they probably called a "miracle" or "the devil's tinting."

Vassil/Wikimedia

Fact: No real vampires have ever survived medieval stained glass.

Continue Reading Below Advertisement

Now, instead of being used to create pictures of holy dudes getting stabbed by goat horns and such, medieval glass technology is helping us explore the red planet. So it's only a little inaccurate to say that we're sending Jesus to Mars.