Walter Myers / Science Photo Library
Besides the earth, Mars is perhaps the most studied world of our solar system, which currently houses a fleet of orbiters, moor and Rovers. But above the red sands on which the roller of the Rovers, a strange moon rises twice a day. And despite all the control that Mars itself receives, this moon, Phobos, remains wrapped in mystery.
Phobos and His smaller neighboring moon, Deimos – The two discovered in 1877 – are two of the most perplexed worlds in the solar system. “These are the only objects at this stage, in the solar system, for which we have roughly any idea of what they are,” says Pascal Lee at the SETI Institute in California. “We know what other moons are. We know asteroids and comets. Phobos and Deimos? No idea. “
The Martian moons could be captured asteroids, or they could have formed from the same disc of primordial planets as Mars. Perhaps they were forged by a fiery cataclysm like the collision that made the Moon of the Earth. Or maybe their original story is something else. “What are they?” request Abigail Fraeman At the NASA jet propulsion laboratory in California. “I think it is one of the great mysteries of planetary science.”
Now there is hope that we could finally resolve this puzzle, thanks to a new mission to Phobos which is in preparation. This would offer more than a simple satisfactory answer: it could also open a new window on the history of the inner solar system, and perhaps indicate the source of the building blocks of life on earth.
He…
