Friday, 28 June 2024

Phobos was once a space rock that Mars captured

 

Image courtesy of NASA.  

Joel Kontinen

“NASA has posted a stunning photo of a "space potato"— but it is actually Phobos, the Martian moon that is locked on a slow collision course with the Red Planet.

The space agency imaged the lumpy, starchy-looking moon using the High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) camera on board NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, which has been studying the Red Planet since arriving in its orbit in 2006.

Phobos, named after the Greek god of fear, is roughly 157 times smaller than Earth's moon and is one of Mars' two natural satellites, alongside the even smaller Deimos, whose name comes from the Greek god of dread. “

The present survey rests on Mars and its moons being formed millions of years ago,

Scientists, who believe in evolution say that that the ””moons were once roaming rocks and were snared into Mars' orbit by the planet's gravitational field. A recent image analysis of Phobos' craggy yet highly reflective surface suggested the moon was once a comet and came from the asteroid belt located between the Red Planet and Jupiter.”

Those sounds like science fiction, relying on moon or planet they and  we could not see.

Source:  

 Ben Turner, '2024. 'Space potato' spotted by NASA Mars satellite is actually something much cooler (yahoo.com) 26 June