Tag Archives: Phobos

Mars Orbiter Mission: Phobos in motion

Did you see that? It moved! Oh, it’s just Phobos.  [Flash animation at link]

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Curiosity images Phobos crossing the Sun

From Emily Lakdawalla’s blog at The Planetary Society: “Shooting video of a lumpy moon crossing the Sun and turning it into a giant googly eye is not a new activity for Curiosity, but I get a fresh thrill each time … Continue reading

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HRSC: Phobos and Jupiter align

Even though it may only be a lump of porous rock, Phobos isn’t shy about hogging the limelight in this sequence taken by ESA’s Mars Express. These three images show Phobos, the larger of the two martian moons, darting across … Continue reading

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Curiosity: Sol 613, April 27, 2014

Mars moon Phobos leaves a trail as it sets in the east over the shoulder of Mount Sharp, in the first of six time- exposure frames taken over a 10-minute period by Curiosity’s right-side Navcam. The full series of images … Continue reading

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Curiosity images planets, asteroids, Mars moons

A new image from NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover is the first ever from the surface of Mars to show an asteroid, and it shows two: Ceres and Vesta. These two — the largest and third-largest bodies in the asteroid belt … Continue reading

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Phobos as dropbox for Mars sample return

Current plans for bringing samples to Earth from Mars involve three distinct steps. First is a rover with the capability to cache samples: this will be the Mars 2020 rover, now in its initial stages of development. Second is a … Continue reading

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Impact debris from Mars lies everywhere on Phobos

On Earth there are meteorites that arrived naturally from the Moon and also ones from Mars that arrived the same way. Both are fragments that were ejected into space at escape velocity in the aftermath of big meteorite impacts.

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Grooving on Phobos

Phobos, the larger moon of Mars, has a surface covered in craters, dust, boulders – and a great many semi-parallel and intersecting grooves. One theory for the grooves’ origin, proposed in 2011, holds that they are impact scars from chains … Continue reading

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Hurtling moon casts no cooling shadow

Total solar eclipses on Earth take hours to unfold, even if totality — the brief time when all the Sun is covered — lasts just a few minutes. Almost everyone who stands in the path of a solar eclipse notes … Continue reading

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Where did Phobos and Deimos form?

For a long time, scientists thought the Martian moons, Deimos and Phobos, were captured asteroids. Now, however, many are examining the idea that the moons formed in orbit around Mars, accreting from debris in the aftermath of a big impact. … Continue reading

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