Phobos, one of Mars’s two natural satellites
Little is known about the mysterious satellite of Mars. The MMX mission wants to change this-will capture samples and study the Martian moon, which can give us good tips on the history of the red planet.
Phobos and his smaller neighboring moon, both discovered in 1877, are two of the most disconcerting worlds in the solar system – and the two moons that orbit the planet we investigate most and where.
“These are the only objects, at this stage of the solar system, for which we have virtually no idea what they are,” he says Pascal Leefrom the Seti Institute, California, to. “We know what the other moons are. We know the asteroids and comets. PHOBOS AND SHOES? We have no idea. ”
There are those who believe they are asteroids, but there are also those who argue that they may have formed the same disk of primordial planetary matter as Mars.
“What are the radius they?” question Abigail Fraeman from the NASA jet propulsion laboratory in California. “I think this is one of the great mysteries of planetary science.”
“Phobos and Deimos have always been a kind of neglected worlds for being linked to such an interesting world – Mars, ”says David Minton, from Purdue University in Indiana. “They have always been a kind of late reflection.”
One thing is known and widely shared in the scientific community: the moon is falling towards Mars and, in the next 100 million years, or if will crush against the planet or will be shattered to form a ring that will rain on Mars along millennia.
Not only Phobos and Deimos do nothing like Mars, but the composition of its surface is also different.
An analysis by Sonia Fornasier and other researchers from the Paris Observatory suggests that, spectroscopically, Phobos and Deimos look more like two Parts of a dead comet who separated when he was pulled to the orbit of Mars.
“I think one thing one day and another on another day,” says Fraeman. “My favorite hypothesis, at this moment, is thatand come from an impactBut what remains is mostly the impactor mixed with a little Mars. ”
If Phobos has, in a while, has been an asteroid, it would contribute to our understanding of history about the evolution of habitability in the inner solar system. “This will say something very important about the mechanisms that lead these very important ingredients to the inner planets,” explains Fraeman.
In 2026, the Japan Aerospace Agency (JAXA) is expected to launch the Martian Moons Exploration (MMX) probe to observe up closely-and, if all goes as expected, collect samples from its surface and return them to Earth.
“It is the first mission to return samples from the Martian gravitational field and the satellite Martian Phobos,” says astronomer Tomohiro Usui.
“Let’s get more than 10 grams of Phobos materials… and maybe 10 milligrams of Martian samples. Ten milligrams is a huge amount for a cosmic, ”explains. “This is my kind of realistic dream. It will be real ”.
And if everything went as well as the astronomers yearn, the MMX could be a step forward establish a human presence in the orbit of Mars, possibly with Phobos as advanced post.
It is smaller, much easier to land and take off – and it would be the perfect place to operate robots on the surface of the red planet.
