Perseverance spots Phobos
Click for full image.
Cool image time! The photo to the right, cropped to post here, was taken on January 12, 2022 by one of the high resolution cameras on the Mars rover Perseverance, and shows the Martian moon Phobos.
As noted in an update today by Claire Newman, one of the members of the science team,
This provides a measurement, using visible light, of the amount of dust in the nighttime atmosphere, which can be compared to similar measurements made by looking at the sun during the daytime, and to nighttime measurements of dust abundance made in the infrared by MEDA [another Perseverance instrument].
There have been three attempts to land on Phobos, all by the Russians, all of which failed. At present a Japanese mission to Phobos, dubbed Mars Moons eXploration or MMX, is scheduled to launch in 2024. This is a planned sample return mission, and will also include a rover.
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Click for full image.
Cool image time! The photo to the right, cropped to post here, was taken on January 12, 2022 by one of the high resolution cameras on the Mars rover Perseverance, and shows the Martian moon Phobos.
As noted in an update today by Claire Newman, one of the members of the science team,
This provides a measurement, using visible light, of the amount of dust in the nighttime atmosphere, which can be compared to similar measurements made by looking at the sun during the daytime, and to nighttime measurements of dust abundance made in the infrared by MEDA [another Perseverance instrument].
There have been three attempts to land on Phobos, all by the Russians, all of which failed. At present a Japanese mission to Phobos, dubbed Mars Moons eXploration or MMX, is scheduled to launch in 2024. This is a planned sample return mission, and will also include a rover.
Readers!
Please consider supporting my work here at Behind the Black. Your support allows me the freedom and ability to analyze objectively the ongoing renaissance in space, as well as the cultural changes -- for good or ill -- that are happening across America. Fourteen years ago I wrote that SLS and Orion were a bad ideas, a waste of money, would be years behind schedule, and better replaced by commercial private enterprise. Only now does it appear that Washington might finally recognize this reality.
In 2020 when the world panicked over COVID I wrote that the panic was unnecessary, that the virus was apparently simply a variation of the flu, that masks were not simply pointless but if worn incorrectly were a health threat, that the lockdowns were a disaster and did nothing to stop the spread of COVID. Only in the past year have some of our so-called experts in the health field have begun to recognize these facts.
Your help allows me to do this kind of intelligent analysis. I take no advertising or sponsors, so my reporting isn't influenced by donations by established space or drug companies. Instead, I rely entirely on donations and subscriptions from my readers, which gives me the freedom to write what I think, unencumbered by outside influences.
You can support me either by giving a one-time contribution or a regular subscription. There are four ways of doing so:
1. Zelle: This is the only internet method that charges no fees. All you have to do is use the Zelle link at your internet bank and give my name and email address (zimmerman at nasw dot org). What you donate is what I get.
2. Patreon: Go to my website there and pick one of five monthly subscription amounts, or by making a one-time donation.
3. A Paypal Donation or subscription:
4. Donate by check, payable to Robert Zimmerman and mailed to
Behind The Black
c/o Robert Zimmerman
P.O.Box 1262
Cortaro, AZ 85652
You can also support me by buying one of my books, as noted in the boxes interspersed throughout the webpage or shown in the menu above.
Just wondering if everyone appreciates the absurdity of that picture of a giant rock floating around in space lit up by the sun that we on the earth also orbit and the fact that we who are essentially the direct product of our sun are alive to see it and wonder about it.
Crazy if you think about it.
I can never remember which is the inner and which is the outer, and which is the larger and which is the smaller, Deimos or Phobos! Anyone have a good mnemonic?
Phobos is the larger. He strikes fear.
Deimos is farther a way, because of panic.
Not a mnemonic, exactly, but a memory device none the less.
It works for me.
A rover on Phobos? How will that work, without much gravity to hold it down to the ground? Anyone know the escape velocity of Phobos?
Looks like it’s been discussed here, and depends on where in the potato you are:
https://behindtheblack.com/behind-the-black/points-of-information/escape-velocity-on-phobos-changes-a-lot-depending-on-location/
I’m impressed that a Mars rover, on the surface, is able to point and track and somewhat focus on the Phobos moon. I guess they need to point at the orbiter (MRO),