Mars Express Phobos Flyby Pictures Available

Today, officials at the European Space Agency (ESA) have released images snapped by the orbiter Mars Express of the Martian moon Phobos. The flyby mission took place on March 7, and it brought the spacecraft the closest to the space rock of any other flights to the area. The instruments aboard the ESA orbiter managed to capture some very interesting snapshots of the celestial body, including some images in 3D. These will undoubtedly come in handy as planetary scientists try to make sense of Phobos' peculiarities. All of the images were collected in amazing detail.

This investigation was particularly important for two reasons. First and foremost, by analyzing the radio signals coming from the spacecraft, ESA experts collected enough telemetry to analyze the interior of the moon. This was made possible by the knowledge that various types of material distribution on the inside of planets and other celestial bodies pull on orbiting devices differently. Secondly, the orbiter also examined the prospective landing site for the future Phobos-Grunt mission, which will be conducted by the Russian Federal Space Agency RosCosmos.

“Phobos is an irregular body measuring some 27 × 22 × 19 [kilometers]. Its origin is debated. It appears to share many surface characteristics with the class of ‘carbonaceous C-type’ asteroids, which suggests it might have been captured from this population. However, it is difficult to explain either the capture mechanism or the subsequent evolution of the orbit into the equatorial plane of Mars. An alternative hypothesis is that it formed around Mars, and is therefore a remnant from the planetary formation period,” the ESA press release states.

The photos that Mars Express collected have an extraordinary resolution, of only 4.4 meters per pixel. This allowed the orbiter's instruments to observe many features on the Martian moon that would have otherwise remained hidden, in the face of weaker instruments, or if the flyby would have brought the spacecraft not so close to Phobos' surface. The moon “always shows the same side to the planet, so it is only by flying outside the orbit that it becomes possible to observe the far side. Mars Express did just this on 7, 10 and 13 March 2010,” the statement also reads.