Extreme Close-Up of Mars's Moon Phobos 104
coondoggie writes "The European Space Agency's Mars exploring satellite will make a number of close-up passes of the Martian moon Phobos. The Mars Express, which the agency launched in 2003, has begun a series of flybys of Phobos, the largest moon of Mars, that will ultimately set a new record for the closest pass to Phobos — skimming the surface at 50 km, or about 31 miles. This is only about 5 times the irregular moon's average radius. The data collected by the satellite could help solve some of the mysteries about the moon, beginning with that of its origin."
Not what I asked for. (Score:3, Funny)
I wanted an extreme close-up of Phoebe Cates, dammit.
Re:Not what I asked for. (Score:4, Funny)
Here you go! [pgbeautygr...cience.com]
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I am humbled, to have witnessed such a performance.
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http://groups.google.com/group/alt.os.linux.slackware/browse_thread/thread/856cb487f4b16ae8/7ce5765c3900529e?#7ce5765c3900529e [google.com]
Epic Plagiarisation Fail for Teh Luser
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It's posts like this that make me wish for a '-1 WTF' mod option.
A little plain (Score:5, Funny)
Re:A little plain (Score:4, Funny)
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Or, if you were an early mac gamer and weren't into Doom, it's because it's the wrong moon. The UESC Marathon [wikia.com] was made out of -demios-, not Phobos.
Re:A little plain (Score:5, Funny)
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I was going to make a similar comment. But alas, like said Goddesses, it is never to be.
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me too :-)
quite a coincidence, was yesterday surfing around reading the guides and playing the online versino again.
Got curious, opened google maps, and learned that Upper Sandusky actually exists ?!
I always thought it was a fictional place..
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WTF - looks like Goatse (Score:1, Offtopic)
Eww - no base on that moon for me - looks like you'd be living on a GOATSE world
Yes! (Score:2, Funny)
W00t a rock!
Death Star (Score:1)
Phobos == Death Star.
So, obviously they'll need to get a lot lower than *that*. The Rebel snubfighters were only meters above the surface...
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Picture caption (Score:5, Funny)
For sale: One Death Star. Full size. Somewhat lumpy. Amateur construction. Needs work.
Re:Picture caption (Score:5, Funny)
For sale: One Death Star. Full size. Somewhat lumpy. Amateur construction. Needs work.
That's just an early engineering prototype. The production model came out looking much better [nasa.gov].
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That's no Death Star.
You'll never sell with that description (Score:3, Funny)
For sale: One Death Star. Full size. Somewhat lumpy. Amateur construction. Needs work.
That'll never sell on Ebay!
Try this:
Act now! One Death Star. Full size. Special lumps making it even more terrifying. Created same time and in same process as other more expensive objects! Condition as new. Comes with 3 free gifts. Free shipping. Why pay more for larger when this does so well? Hurry! This won't last. Seller has A++++ rating.
"Hollow"? (Score:4, Interesting)
> When calculating the density, this gives a surprising figure because it
> seems that parts of Phobos may be hollow...
That is interesting, to say the least.
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"For the World is Hollow and I Touched the Sky" Star Trek:OS
Maybe, there's a door camouflaged as a crater or something and there's some really hot priestess that worships a computer that's looking for a husband?
Re:"Hollow"? (Score:5, Funny)
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Not very likely - it would escape rapidly. There might be pockets of ice, though.
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If Phobos has ice under its surface the next 50 years will be very interesting. A mission to mars orbit with ISRU [nasa.gov] would suddenly look feasible.
Re:"Hollow"? (Score:5, Informative)
When calculating the density, this gives a surprising figure because it
seems that parts of Phobos may be hollow...
There was a 50 year old hypothesis that Phobos was hollow, with a very low density, in order to explain the anomalous drag on the satellite, which has now been shown to be due to the tidal bulge raised on Mars by Phobos. The measured density is about 1.9 gm/cm^3, which is a little low, but not unusual compared to the asteroids [mac.com], especially small asteroids.
These are probably just all rock piles, repeatedly fractured by collisions and without enough self-gravity to smush things back together, so some internal voids would not be surprising.
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> These are probably just all rock piles, repeatedly fractured by collisions
> and without enough self-gravity to smush things back together, so some
> internal voids would not be surprising.
Small voids, yes, but they would have be pretty big to show up at the resolution these measurements good for.
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It's a pile of rubble; the voids permeate it through.
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~[p[]]*kc3sla/.U
***MESSAGE INTERRUPTED***
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Oblig. (Score:4, Funny)
IT's A TRAP!!!!!!
no no, wait, I got this..
That's no moon!!!
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it fills me with fear to look at it (Score:1)
can you possibly imagine the horror of something similar?
Fear of the moon = Selenophobia (Score:1)
Fear of a moon named Phobos (fear) = ???
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Fear of a moon named Phobos (fear) = ???
I like "phobophobia" better.
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Didn't FDR suffer from that?
Mmmmm.... (Score:2)
Leather Goddesses!
This all began in Upper Sandusky, Ohio, in 1936. The Leather Goddesses of Phobos are just finalizing their plans for the invasion of Earth. People have been abducted by the Leather Goddesses for the final testing of the plan which will enslave all of humanity. Unless this nefarious plan is stopped, the Earth will be turned into these twisted vixens' pleasure dome. For some unknown reason, this outcome is considered unfavorable.
Did some one say... (Score:1, Troll)
If Wayne and Garth were /. moderators (Score:1, Troll)
http://excloseup.ytmnd.com/ [ytmnd.com]
Original Phobos pics from ESA (Score:1)
http://www.esa.int/esa-mmg/mmg.pl?topic=&subtopic=&keyword=phobos&subm2=GO [esa.int]
Doom (Score:2)
I won't lie, the first thing I thought of when I read 'Phobos' was the classic game 'Doom', which takes place on Phobos I believe...
Does this mean... (Score:2)
Where's the fucking hi-res pictures? (Score:3, Informative)
Was it really so hard for the submitter to give this a proper non-misleading title, and a link to the actual ESA press release? [esa.int]
Is there a way to get kdawson fired? He seems to pull this shit a lot.
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That's not a redirect.
[just kidding...I think...]
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Sorry to be blunt, but I don't visit Slashdot to get redirected to some shitty ad-plastered website with half-assed copy/pasted information. Was it really so hard for the submitter to give this a proper non-misleading title, and a link to the actual ESA press release? [esa.int] Is there a way to get kdawson fired? He seems to pull this shit a lot.
I'm going to guess it's because the linked article had that nice photo to look at. You know, the extreme close up photo that was the whole point of the article submission. Not that official information like the link you suggested isn't nice.
Pictures from 200 km (Score:5, Interesting)
The Soviet Phobos-2 mission returned some cool pictures [iki.rssi.ru] before its computer failed. I especially like the ones with Mars in the background [mentallandscape.com].
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What if Manhattan were on Phobos? (Score:2)
Wikipedia says Manhattan is 21km, and that Phobos is 11km average radius.
Is this what Manhattan would look like on Phobos? [digitalsushi.com]
I dunno. I think the math is about right, but I've been really wrong before.
Hollow? Hmmm... (Score:1)
phobic! (Score:2)
How does this qualify as extreme close up? (Score:2)
Looks pretty low resolution to me compared to NASA's HiRISE [wikipedia.org] images from 2008. The wikipedia page has a link to a nice time magazine gallery and the Official HiRISE Site [arizona.edu]Go ahead click on the 3374 × 3300 pixel image on this UCL page [ucl.ac.uk] for an EXTREME closeup of Phobos.
So nice snap shots ESA, but hardly extreme...
Dumb question time (Score:2)
For the sake of argument, let's assume that either Phobos or Deimos are composed of something we really want. Titanium, uranium, etc. What would be the effect on Mars' orbit if we mined the moon? I know that their gravity, compared to Mars, is negligible, but they still have an effect on the orbit.
What would happen if one or both moons were removed from their orbits?
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It would be safe to assume that the moons help to stabilize Mars' rotation around it's own axis. Phobos has an associated tidal bulge on Mars itself, I don't know about Deimos. Without these moons, Mars' geographic pole axis would wander around the celestial sphere. That means that the geographic poles would be in the same place on Mars, but the "north star" would change every so often. Be aware that this happens on Earth, too, in a 24000 year cycle.
Link (Score:1)
Phobos flyby blog:
http://webservices.esa.int/blog/blog/7 [esa.int]
Better than the linked article.
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Re:Typical (Score:4, Insightful)
You are ignorant. Many of the technologies that we have now owe their existence to space technology. We know more than ever about our own planet's environment, its ecosystem, weather and lifeforms thanks to the exploration of other planets. It is likely that you would not even have a computer, nor access to a global network to post your message on if not for technology developed for space exploration. There is also the simple drive for knowledge, but obviously knowing things isn't your modus operandi.
What REALLY needs to be cut is military and weapons funding. The invasion of Iraq alone costs around ten billion tax dollars per year for a pointless and unscrupulous occupation.
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(You may have a point about Iraq, but that's getting into specifics and would require being complet
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Many of the technologies that we have now owe their existence to space technology...
What REALLY needs to be cut is military and weapons funding.
While I agree with you, you should bear in mind that many advances in medicine, surgery and our understanding of anatomy owe their existence to war. A lot of knowledge was gained on how the visual cortex works by performing tests on soldiers with localised gun shot wounds to the head, for example.
Does that make up for the money and human cost? I don't know; I doubt
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To complete the circle, many of the technologies behind the original space race likely wouldn't have been funded if they didn't have nuclear weapons applications. Big-ticket science has, historically, hitched a ride on military expendature. Whether that's desirable is a whole other question, but there you go.
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Because no-one ever gets injured except during a war, of course.
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actually the main reason for NASA being founded was to improve the US's rocket technology so they could better deliver nuclear weapons to other continents. NASA has a pretty big connection to the military, the line is pretty blurred as to what amount of NASA's funding actually is military spending.
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Your sight is short and your mind narrow! We're running out of resources at an alarming rates and I'm not talking petroleum. Perhaps we can create extremely good recycling technology but I doubt it will occur before another great war. If we don't start figuring out how to get off the rock we call home we will surely perish on it. We will need a great deal of effort and time to figure out how to survive in space as it is a dangerous place. Yes, I know you don't care, it won't happen in your lifetime but the
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Except that Phobos is in Inner Space.
Outer space is the solar system beyond the asteroid belt (which Mars is inside). Deep space is beyond the solar system.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_System#Structure [wikipedia.org]
There's some homework for you. Troll.
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Except that Phobos is in Inner Space.
LIES!!! Wikipedia is patently wrong in this case.
It is a well established fact that Innerspace [imdb.com] is the area within the human body.
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Which is wrong. Apologies to the Space Industry, but you can't go reassigning scientific terms because you feel like it.
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How much money are we gonna let these scientists waste?
A billion dollars?
How quaint! I am reminded of Dr. Evil.
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I must say, I'm impressed that this troll has gathered so many replies. Especially as he advertises that it's a troll.
Look at the first letter of the subject and each line in the post: "TROLLED SO HARD".
I don't like to encourage trolls, but this one was quite inventive.
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