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The Moons Of Mars: Deimos & Phobos

http://hardtruth.topcities.com/planetsindex.htm

This site contains a similar report. It also boasts one of the most spectacularly deranged conspiracy theories I have ever had the pleasure to read. Apparently, our skies are full of invisible planes, the russians and americans have bases all over the solar system, the russians have killer manned 'cosmosphere's' orbiting the planet taking pot-shots at space shuttles and sundry satellites (that is, the space shuttles that aren't really souped-up weapons platforms designed to wreak havok on the russian satellites), nuclear war is scheduled by the bolshevik-yanks every few years (funnily enough, always on my birthday, September 17 :) ) only to be averted at the last minute by Russian super-weapons. Those pesky Russians!

Anyway, its a very amusing (14 page long) read beginning here .
Link is dead. The MIA webpage can be accessed via the Wayback Machine:
https://web.archive.org/web/20020306143314/http://hardtruth.topcities.com/fire1.htm


Enjoy (if you have the patience and a good sense of humour).
 
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Great. Now I have even more to ponder before forming my own hypothesis. :(
 
I e-mailed Cornell's astronomy dept about this over a week ago, and still no answer. Hm....
 
First ive heard of anything like this. I remember hearing a while back that they had disapeard from mars, but i doubt that they somehow made it to earth and entered the orbit.
Im not an expert of astronomy but wouldnt we be able to see these moons with the naked eye if they did enter earths orbit?
 
garrick92 said:
Depends how high they were orbiting. They're not really 'moon sized', they're more 'crappy little pebble' sized.

Ok, but surely they must be larger than satalites? i should really go looking for info on their sizes but im kinda lazy but i take it they are a few miles in diameter?
Also i guess the could be really high up in orbit, wouldnt this be big news if it were true? or you think scientists would be reluctant to release the information because they cant explain it? Also could these new moons perhaps just be space junk that look similar to phobos? lets face it they hardly have seals of originality stuck to them and one space rock looks similar to another, doesnt it?
 
garrick92 said:
Depends how high they were orbiting. They're not really 'moon sized', they're more 'crappy little pebble' sized.

It also depends on the objects reflectivity (I think I might have just made up a word :confused: ). Phobos and Deimos are approx. 10 miles and 5 miles long respectively. Unless I got that backwards, in which case it would be the other way around. Either way, they're rather small, and being mostly flat in color, would likely be much more difficult to see with the naked eye than say, a big shiny hunk of aluminum foil and what not (read International Space Station). :D
 
Lupus Yonderboy said:
It also depends on the objects reflectivity (I think I might have just made up a word :confused: ).
No need to make up a word, Lupus, astronomers already have one - it's ALBEDO.

As you say, a lot of these space rocks have a very low albedo, but even so, if these two moons were in Earth orbit I think they'd have been spotted by now.

Not to mention the near impossiblity of capture of one, let alone two moons - but I understand that the hidden sub-text here is that these objects are actually alien space-craft... :eek!!!!: :eek!!!!: Eek! indeed!
 
I rather like the word reflectivity - sums up the concept quite nicely I think :)

This does seem to be one of those "why are the moons called that - did our ancestors know something we don't? Ah-ha..." theories. Or is that what I'm supposed to think?

As always, I just hope the aliens are friendly!

Jane.
 
As long as Stichin isn't wearing an 'I Told You So...' t-shirt

8¬)
 
rynner said:
No need to make up a word, Lupus, astronomers already have one - it's ALBEDO.

Oh yeah, well my word is WAYYYYY cooler than their word. Just ask Jane. :D

I've got to admit to being a little lazy in my follow up on this one, but I seem to recall another page (possibly from the same group), and with an older date, describing the reasons that Phobos could not be a natural satellite of Mars.

[Cue spooky conspiracy music]Has anyone ever done a success to failure ratio comparisson between probes sent to Mars versus all other probes launched? It seems to me they tend to fail at a much higher rate. :eek: [/Cue spooky conspiracy music]
 
That article was far out. It seemed stupid how they complained that science never knew anything for sure. That we only knew approximatly. I just think it shows they're not as arrogant as the people they say know for sure because it says so in an old book.

And yes, Phobos and Deimos would definitly be discovered if they orbited Earth. I think you could actually see them with the naked eye. They may not have much Albedo, but considering how strong sunlight is it shouldn't be a problem. You'd see them shortly after sunset I think.
 
Xanatic said:
That article was far out. It seemed stupid how they complained that science never knew anything for sure. That we only knew approximatly. I just think it shows they're not as arrogant as the people they say know for sure because it says so in an old book.

True, they did somewhat shoot themselves in the foot with that argument. I think what they were trying to do was argue against approximations and theories being used as truth, when in reality they are only approximations and theories.
 
TorgosPizza said:
I e-mailed Cornell's astronomy dept about this over a week ago, and still no answer. Hm....

I wouldn't worry. I e-mailed the Randi foundation a month ago to no avail.

Still, I suppose Cornell talk to people who disagree with them..
 
Lupus Yonderboy said:
http://www.tmgnow.com/repository/cometary/76P_phobos1.html

I just finished reading the article....and to be honest its going to take me some time to comment on this one. See for yourself.

Just a quick perusal of the article showed up the "accuracy" of their reporting. They claim that the space shuttle Atlantis carried out a night landing and that ...

"A landing that was at night - an extremely dangerous attempt and one that they had never done before or since."

It only takes a quick Google search to discover that...

"The five Americans and two Russians touched down at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida at 0356 local time (0756GMT) on Wednesday. It was only the 15th night-time landing in space shuttle history."

(http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/sci/tech/newsid_933000/933447.stm)

I think that we can safely assume that the rest of the TMG article is probably of the same level of quality.

As for Phobos and Deimos having disappeared from Mars, I think that it would have been nigh on impossible to have covered up this information. Why has there been nothing written about it in academic journals, or more popular journals such as New Scientist? If it were true, then there would likely be hundreds, if not thousands, of astronomers toiling away on the problem as we speak. (Note that these would also include well equiped amateurs who would, if a conspiracy was involved, be so much harder to hush up.)

I am now heading down to the safety of my deep underground bunker... ;)
 
Since no-one really looks for the moons of Mars, it would be easy enough to miss then being gone for some little time...

However, this article finds the Shadows of the moons on Mars, which indicates that they are where they should be. Glen Deen was one of the primary movers behind the missing moons ...

Phobos Shadows

<Partial Quote>
Introduction

To be honest, I was looking for a “smoking gun”, and I didn’t find one. Because a particular theory required that Phobos be ejected from Mars in early June of 2000, I had hoped to find Phobos shadows on Mars up to some date and none afterward, and that would tend to support the theory. I did find that Phobos shadows were missing after September 20, 2000, but I also found that the reason was that after that date the equator of Mars, and therefore the orbit of Phobos, was tilted so much with respect to the orbit of Mars that the shadow of Phobos had moved beneath the South Pole of Mars and was projecting into empty space. Furthermore, the theory in question required a much earlier ejection. September 20, 2000 was more than three months too late.

I have previously speculated in 76P Collision Theory and The Phobos Mystery Continues that Phobos may have been ejected from its orbit around Mars as a result of a close encounter with Comet 76P/West/Kohoutek/Ikemura in June 2000. That did not happen, and so those speculations are wrong. Nevertheless, I found that 56 consecutive mapping swaths (among 121 consecutive images) are either missing or censored from June 5 to June 9, 2000, and this begs the question as to whether the camera might have been aimed at Comet 76P instead of the surface of Mars.

I was also wrong about Deimos when I published Phobos and Deimos Have Vanished. I sincerely regret that mistake, and I apologize to all of my readers for having made it. Ironically, when I published that mistaken article on August 21, 2000, I had already looked at the photograph that I had taken two days earlier that contained the image of Deimos, but I did not see it at that time. It was not until weeks later that I looked at the same photograph again, and I saw it. This photograph is shown in Glen Deen Captures Martian Satellite. Deimos is the small white spot in the glare of Mars just to the left of the arrow.

This current article about Phobos Shadows does not rule out the possibility that Comet 76P may have experienced an orbit deflection as a result a close encounter (or a collision) with Mars and that the same comet (or ejected debris from an impact) may impact Earth as speculated in Possible Comet impact in Iraq on June 10, 2002, nor does it rule out the possibility that Phobos may have been ejected by the event that initiated the Martian global dust storm on July 2, 2001. It only rules out the involvement of Phobos in the imputed June 2000 encounter of Comet 76P with Mars, if such an encounter occurred.

As a result of my present study of its eclipse shadows in the Mars Global Surveyor (MGS) Mars Orbital Camera (MOC) wide-angle mapping swaths, I can say unequivocally that Phobos was still in its regular orbit as recently as September 20, 2000. At that time, its shadow was very near the South Pole and heading south into space. It should have returned to the Martian South Polar region around March 6, 2001 heading north, but no mapping swaths have been published after January 31, 2001. The only way I could be wrong about this would be if Malin Space Science Systems (MSSS) added shadows to images that had no shadows, and I do not believe they did that. Because if they did add missing shadows, they would not have added any extra mysterious shadows, thereby raising questions...

8¬)
 
Yes, but.....

Surely if the moons of mars had vanished and wondered or had been piloted into earth orbit, then we would have notice some commosion on the net between the Conspiracy theorists and the scientists alike, and seeing as we here at Fortean Times are the ones most likely to scrounge for this kinda stuff...i think we'd have found evidence support the fact. But then again...the Phobos 2 satalite images of the "object" are pretty good, and made their way into several worldwide newspapers...

As for the "ancestors knew what we don't and now we're gonna pay for it" theory...you've only gotta look at the ancients for that evidence. The Mayan (sp?) calander has been acurate one every major cataclizmic event of modern times. Plus, the Ancient Sumerians (The founders of all major ancient races) had advanced astronomical knowledge, stating that we had 9 planets plus a rogue planet on the outer edge of the system with a 2086 year orbit (don't quote me on that), and also, the set date for the end of the world as 2012...that has yet tobe seen. But one thing is for sure, we are the generation who will have to spawn new theories and ideas about our civilzation's origins. Cos' we didn't come from dirt!
 
My guess is that there was a diversion in place between here and Mars. (Something to do with construction beginning on a hyperspace bypass...) This took Phobos and Deimos down some of the interplanetary B roads, and now they're stuck in tailbacks around Jupiter. Typical.;)
 
mars moons

did phobos ever turn up? i was catching up on old threads and they stopped, leaving me perplexed!!
 
Re: Have Mars' moons vanished?

Hermes said:
I followed this link in FT's own Breaking News section to a site that poses this important (for Mars) question...(

Thank you so much! I heard about this event last year but could find no information whatsoever.

Now, however, I have found that the original info about the missing Phobos was wrong.

Try these two links:

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/astro-revelation/message/1053
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/astro-revelation/messages/1038
 
Re: Re: Have Mars' moons vanished?

Thanks for the links Elisheva, i guess it goes to show how something can be made from nothing!!
 
phobos_mgs.jpg

Martian Moon Phobos from MGS

http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap030701.html
 
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Thanks for that Ruf, very interesting, I was wondering if the two moons were once one larger body that was broken up by impact, perhaps Rynner might have info or theory.
 
Both of Mars' moons are small
Phobos 27 x 22 x 19 km
Deimos 15 x 12 x 11 km
and are generally thought to be captured asteroids. (The orbit of Mars is just inside the asteroid belt, and many of them have very elliptical orbits which cross the orbits of various planets.)
 
New Theory: Catastrophe Created Mars' Moons Begins:
The two moons of Mars -- Phobos and Deimos -- could be the byproducts of a breakup of a huge moon that once circled the red planet, according to a new theory.

The capture of a large Martian satellite may have taken place during or shortly after the formation of the planet, with Phobos and Deimos now the surviving remnants.

Origin of the two moons presents a longstanding puzzle to which one researcher proposed the new solution at the 6th International Conference on Mars, held here last week.

"Nobody has been able to explain the origin of Phobos and Deimos," said S. Fred Singer, an atmospheric physicist, and professor emeritus of environmental sciences at the University of Virginia, and the president of the Arlington (Virginia)-based Science & Environmental Policy Project, a non-profit policy institute.

Violating laws

Based on research performed as a visiting scientist at the Lunar & Planetary Institute in Houston in October 2002, Singer said that conventional hypotheses about the moons either violate physical laws or have difficulty accounting for their observed orbits.

Singer reported at the meeting that "there are no ready alternatives to explain the origin of the Martian moons."

At present, both satellites have near-circular and near-equatorial orbits.

Phobos' orbit, however, has been observed to shrink since its discovery in 1877. The present track of Deimos -- just beyond the synchronous limit where it nearly matches the spin rate of Mars - is an important data point, Singer said.

"Is that by accident? I don't think so…it gives you a clue about its origin," he told SPACE.com.

Through a complex set of orbital calculations involving Mars, the large hypothetical Mars moon itself, and tracing back in time the past and present whereabouts of Phobos and Deimos, Singer believes he has a case.

In the Singer scenario, the close proximity of a large original moon to the red planet - captured in Mars synchronous orbit -- would have eventually fractured the object. Gravitational pushes and tugs would have turned it into a rubble pile that would still cling together gravitationally.

"Forces would soon drive the largest pieces into Mars, with the smallest pieces remaining as Phobos and Deimos," Singer said. In the breakup process, the most massive pieces would spiral in far more rapidly, crashing into the planet. "We need to look for some sign that these existed.

Phobos: going, going, gone

A fundamental prediction by Singer is that the moons are similar in composition and petrology. However, Phobos and Deimos do not appear to be comparable. That distinction is obvious in looking at the differences in their regoliths - each moon's topside covering.

"We need both surface and deep samples to decide this issue, and to investigate whether Phobos and Deimos once formed as parts of a larger body, most of which has now disappeared, perhaps by impacting on Mars," Singer said.

Singer said Phobos will die in a few million years.

"We're lucky in the sense that we're seeing Phobos while it's still around," he said.

Destination Deimos

Singer has plans for Deimos.

The scientist believes the moon would serve as a natural space station for future human explorers.

"First of all, humans on the surface of Mars cannot really do the exploration directly. They have to use rovers to get around. To go from the equator to a pole on Mars just takes too long. It's a big, dangerous journey," Singer said.

What Singer envisions is a Deimos gateway to extensive Mars exploration. An encampment of astronauts would reside on the Martian moon. From there, dozens of rovers could be autopiloted, in real-time.

"There would be no time delay, or so short that it's within the human reaction time," Singer said. From Deimos, quick, down-to-the-surface sorties could be undertaken by humans to select areas, he added.

"This would be a 15-year project, as I look at it. It would cost roughly billion, funded at some billion a year average. That's well within the existing NASA budget," Singer said.

On the political side, Congress is not likely to fund a long series of robotic roving probes to Mars that extends over decades.

"That would not be a very efficient way of studying Mars. If you want to solve the really big problems of Mars, like origin of life, you need to do this in one fell swoop," Singer concluded.
Pics and link on page.
 
Destination Phobos. Maybe it would make a handy orbital station as well.

The case for a mission to Mars' moon Phobos

Ask any space enthusiast, and almost anyone will say humankind's ultimate destination is Mars. But NASA is currently gearing up to go to an asteroid. While the space agency says its Asteroid Initiative will help in the eventual goal of putting people on Mars, what if instead of going to an asteroid, we went to Mars' moon Phobos?

Three prominent planetary scientists have joined forces in a new paper in the Journal Planetary and Space Science to explain the case for a mission to the moons of Mars, particularly Phobos.

"Phobos occupies a unique position physically, scientifically, and programmatically on the road to exploration of the solar system," say the scientists. In addition, the moons may possibly be a source of in situ resources that could support future human exploration in circum-Mars space or on the Martian surface. But a sample return mission first could provide details on the moons' origins and makeup.

The Martian moons are riddles, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma. Phobos and its sibling Deimos seem like just two asteroids which were captured by the planet Mars, and they remain the last objects of the inner solar system not yet studied with a dedicated mission. But should the moons be explored with flybys or sample-return? Should we consider "boots or bots"?

The publications and mission concepts for Phobos and Deimos are numerous and go back decades. The authors of "The Value of a Phobos Sample Return," Murchie, Britt and Pieters, explore the full breadth of questions of why and how to explore Phobos and Deimos. ...

"The case for a mission to Mars' moon Phobos." October 2nd, 2014. http://phys.org/news/2014-10-case-missi ... hobos.html
 
Mars is ripping its moon apart
Phobos will eventually disintegrate and form a ring around the red planet. Belinda Smith reports.

Source hyperLink

Naming the red planet for the god of war was a prescient move. But naming it for Hercules, the god who slaughtered his own children, would have been better.

Mars, it turns out, is mercilessly crushing one of its own moons. When its death throes are finally over, the moon Phobos will have disintegrated into a orbiting disc of dust and rock, and Mars will be a ringed planet, the Solar System’s fifth. That’s the conclusion of a study in Nature Geoscience in November by Benjamin Black and Tushar Mittal from the University of California, Berkeley.

Mars has two moons, Deimos and Phobos. Phobos, the innermost, larger moon is creeping closer to Mars by a few centimetres each year, and is clearly destined for destruction. The question was, would death be by a fatal plunge into Mars’ surface, or by being torn asunder in orbit?

“[Black and Mittal have] rather neatly shown that before Phobos crashes on to Mars, it’ll be ripped apart”, says planetary scientist Helen Maynard-Casely of the Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation in Sydney.

Black and Mittal used several lines of evidence to build their case. Astronomers think Phobos, like sister Deimos, started life as a ‘rubble pile’ asteroid – a conglomerate of rock pieces squished together like a clod of soil – that was captured by Mars’ gravity.

071215_ring-around-mars_2.jpg

Phobos' most prominent feature is the huge impact crater, almost 10 kilometres in diameter, known as the Stickney crater. A smaller crater, created by a later impact, is visible within it.Credit: NASA /JPL-Caltech / University of Arizona
By analysing a 10-kilometre-wide impact crater scaring Phobos’ surface, Black and Mittel worked out the clod’s strength. Had Phobos been solid rock, an impact this size would have shattered it. Had Phobos been a loose bundle of rubble, it would have disintegrated. Phobos fell in between – a pebbly, crumbly composition held together by gravity.

Next, Black and Mittel examined the forces Mars exerts on Phobos. ‘Stretch marks’ on Phobos’s surface are graphic reminders of how the moon has already been stretched and squeezed by Mars’ gravitational pull.

As Phobos spirals closer to Mars, the researchers concluded, these forces will take it to breaking point. At the moment, Phobos orbits 9,400 kilometres from Mars’ surface. Once Phobos gets to between 4,700 and 680 kilometres, in roughly 20 to 40 million years, it will rupture, its rubble forming a ring around Mars.

Retribution for Mars won’t be swift, but it will be certain. Its new ring will eventually disintegrate, in up to 100 million years. And its other moon Deimos, orbiting at around 23,000 kilometres and so protected from the destructive gravity of Mars, will continue to slowly pull away. Millions of years down the track, Deimos will fling off into the Solar System, leaving Mars alone. Moonless. Ringless.

Also in Cosmos: Looking for life in salty Martian streams

Belinda Smith is deputy editor of Cosmos.
 
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