A close-up of the Martian moon Phobos.
(Image credit: ESA/DLR/FU Berlin)
Posted on 10/31/2022 3:53:38 PM PDT by BenLurkin
Europe's Mars Express spacecraft has peered deeper into the subsurface of the Martian moon Phobos than ever before, finding hints of unknown structures that could be clues as to the moon's origin.
Mars Express, which is a 19-year-veteran spacecraft in orbit around Mars, came within 51.6 miles (83 kilometers) of Phobos on Sept. 22, 2022 and was able to probe beneath the moon's surface using upgraded software on its MARSIS instrument (Mars Advanced Radar for Subsurface and Ionosphere Sounding).
Understanding the interior structure of Phobos could be key in solving the mystery of its origin.
A close-up of the Martian moon Phobos.
(Image credit: ESA/DLR/FU Berlin)
Mars has two moons, named Phobos and Deimos after the gods of 'fear' and 'panic' in Greek mythology. Unlike the major moons of our solar system, Phobos and Deimos are tiny, just 16.7 miles (27 kilometers) and 9.3 miles (15 kilometers) across, respectively. They have a similar composition to carbonaceous C-type asteroids, and are irregularly shaped like asteroids too, which has led to the suspicion that they actually are rogue asteroids captured by Mars' gravity. However, both Phobos and Deimos' orbits around the red planet are over Mars' equator and both orbits are extremely circular, which suggests they formed around Mars. If they had been captured, they would be expected to have more elliptical orbits in different planes.
MARSIS involves a 40-meter-long antenna beaming low frequency radio waves down to the surface. Most of the radio waves are reflected directly back from the surface, but some penetrate deeper, where they encounter transitions between layers of different composition and structure, and are reflected back by these boundaries. The stronger the reflection in the resulting 'radargram', the brighter the returning radio signal.
(Excerpt) Read more at space.com ...
(I know, but I’m on a rôle...)
Shut up or I’ll hit on your girlfriend again.
LOL!
Anyone who’s played Doom knows that this can’t be good.
Didn’t the Russians lose a few things to the moons ? LOL
Deimos and Phobos were discovered by an American, Asaph Hall (1829-1907), in August 1877 in the U.S. Naval Observatory in Washington, D.C.
Have you got the Phobos to prove it?
I just made it up. Why, was it in a movie or something?
And Leon is gettting larrrrrger!
The calc'd low density, small size, and puzzling unknown origin of Mars' moons led the great pillock Carl Sagan to suggest that they could be artificial bodies left by some exobiological entities.
I'm inclined to a natural explanation.
Phobos is slowly headed toward the Martian surface, and in a mere 50 million years will crash into Mars, after it reaches its Roche point and turns to rubble. That means that a capture origin is most likely.
How and when capture occurred is yet to be determined.
Deimos is something like 1/7th the mass of Phobos and in the ballpark of four times further from Mars' surface, and thanks to our friend, the tidal transfer of momentum, is in the process of escape.
You’re right, a topic is useless without Phobos.
I hate when they leave the lights on.
It isn’t a moon, it’s Marvin the Martian’s spaceship...
This turned out to be rather prescient...
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