A mysterious origin and Arthur C. Clarke-level science fiction speculation about the 17-mile-wide deeply furrowed moon as an alien artifact captured in the ancient past by the gravitational field of Mars, may explain Russia’s almost mystical obsession. with Phobos. First, the Soviet Union, then more recently, Russia, made three attempts to reach the enigmatic object, but software bugs and launch disasters have nullified each attempt.
In 2016, the BBC reported that a mysterious monolithic object was discovered several years ago by a NASA probe, and to this day no one is quite sure what it was or how it got there.
“When people find out about that, they are going to say, ‘Who put that there? Who put that there? ”Said Buzz Aldrin, the second man to walk on the Moon, in 2009, on the large, peculiar and solitary rock, a monolith, found on the surface of Phobos, named after the ancient Greek word for“ fear ”.
Japan MMX Mission
Back to the present: Japan is on deck, planning to launch her MMX mission to Phobos in 2024 to obtain rock samples to decode the chemistry of the strange moon and decipher its origin, as well as provide clues to the existence of life on ancient Mars. Robin George Andrews reports for the New York Times. Meteorites colliding with Mars could have covered Phobos in a layer of Martian dust that can be very young and extremely old, “showing how Mars could have progressed from a habitable world to an uninhabitable one,” says Tomohiro Usui, an exploration expert. robotic planetary. with the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, which currently works at NASA’s Johnson Space Center.
“Should not exist”
“They are super rare, confusing and interesting,” said Abigail Fraeman, a planetary scientist studying Mars, Phobos and their little sister moon Deimos at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory. “They tick all the boxes that are consistent with them like these captured asteroids,” said Fraeman, “patches of debris that moved too close to Mars long ago and got caught in the planet’s orbit.” They just shouldn’t exist, “he added. Fraeman “They don’t make any sense.”
The enduring mystery of the dark moons of Mars Phobos and Deimos
Captured primitive asteroids?
The debate over the origin of the two moons has divided scientists for decades, from the earliest days of planetary science. In visible light, Phobos and Deimos look much darker than Mars, resembling primitive asteroids in the outer solar system, suggesting that moons may be asteroids long ago trapped in the gravitational pull of Mars. But the shapes and angles of the moons’ orbits do not fit the capture hypothesis, and some scientists suggest that the moons must have formed at the same time as Mars, or that they resulted from a massive impact on the planet during their millennia. formative.
Stickney Crater Clues
A 2018 Brown University study suggests that the distinctive strange grooves that cross the surface of Phobos were made by rolling rocks released from an ancient asteroid impact that created the Stickney crater, a large 9-kilometer wound at one end of the body. Phobos oblong shown at top of page Computer models show that rocks rolling across the surface after Stickney’s impact could have created the puzzling groove patterns, first seen in the 1970s by NASA’s Mariner and Viking missions. Some scientists suggest that Mars’ gravity is slowly ripping Phobos, and the grooves are signs of structural failure.
“Rolling Stones” –Marbos strange lunar phobes: boulders released from an ancient impact
In less than 100 million years, said Matija Ćuk, a research scientist at the SETI Institute in Mountain View, California, Phobos, who may have been assembled just 200 million years ago, will get so close to Mars that its gravity will rip apart a separate moon, transforming into a mini ring system similar to Saturn.
“Some scientists say it won’t be the first time,” reports the New York Times. “Recent calculations suggest that Phobos was once 20 times more massive.” But, according to one hypothesis, it headed towards Mars and shattered ring material, much of which rained down on Mars. The remaining ring material was grouped into a new smaller Phobos. This cycle was repeated several times over billions of years, and Phobos decreased with each complete cycle. “
Scientists can get their answer to Phobos’s origins in the years to come, when the Martian Moon eXploration spacecraft completes its mission to collect samples and return them to Earth for analysis.
The Daily Galaxy, Max Goldberg via New York Times and BBC
Image credit: NASA / JPL / University of Arizona
