The Mars Express spacecraft dug deeper than ever into the Martian moon Phobos and found clues to unidentified structures that could hold clues to the moon’s origin, according to RT.
Mars Express, a 19-year veteran spacecraft in orbit around Mars, flew 51.6 miles (83 km) from Phobos on September 22, 2022 and was able to use the software to study what lies beneath the surface. of the moon. It was developed on the Mars Advanced Subsurface and Ionospheric Radar (MARSIS) instrument.
Understanding the internal structure of Phobos could be the key to solving the mystery of its origin, Andrea Sechetti, member of the MARSIS scientific team of the National Institute of Astrophysics (INAF), said in a note: “We are still at the beginning of the our analysis. But we have already seen potential signs of previously unknown features beneath the lunar surface. “
In 1877, the American astronomer Asaph Hall discovered two small moons orbiting Mars, which the Greeks called “Phobos” and “Deimos”, which mean “fear” and “respect”.
But the excitement, far from “fear” and “horror”, lies in the close encounter with Phobos carried out by the European Space Agency’s Mars Express spacecraft on the eve of Halloween this year.
A recent flyby of this larger Martian moon provided the perfect opportunity to test one of the first spacecraft upgrades.
The MARSIS instrument was originally designed to study the internal structure of Mars. As a result, it is designed for use at the typical distance between a spacecraft and the planet’s surface – more than 250 km.
However, it recently received a major software update that allows it to be used at a much shorter distance, which could help shed light on Phobos’ mysterious origins.
Andrea said: “During this flight, we used MARSIS to study Phobos at a close range of 83 km and this approach allows us to study its structure in more detail and identify important features that we would not be able to see from afar. In the future, we are confident that we can use MARSIS for a distance of over 40km and the Mars Express orbiter has been tuned to get as close as possible to Phobos on several flights between 2023 and 2025, which gives us great opportunities. to try “.
“We didn’t know if that was possible and the team tested many variations of the program by loading the new software onto the spacecraft,” said Simon Wood, Mars Express flight observer in ESOC’s ESOC operations. The center that oversaw the loading of a new program into the spacecraft. Successful final modifications of the spacecraft a few hours before the flight.
