Probe gets eyeful of Mars moon (BBC)

[eppur_se_muova]

Europe's Mars Express spacecraft has returned some remarkable close-up images of the Red Planet's Phobos moon.

The probe passed just 93km from the rock on 23 July, allowing its High Resolution Stereo Camera to take extremely detailed pictures.

Potato-shaped Phobos is 27km in its longest dimension and is thought to be a captured-asteroid or a remnant of the material that formed the planets.

The new images include portions of the moon not previously photographed.

They also show clearly the satellite's famous grooves.



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more: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7534300.stm

http://www.esa.int/esaMI/Mars_Express/SEM5H48N9JF_0.html

[DCKit]

1. O.K.. I'm thinking either it is sedimentary in origin (unlikely -> impossible)...

or it was spinning really fast and those meteors that hit at a shallow angle, rolled across the surface. Look where one line crosses a crater then seems to impact a rise before continuing on halfway down and to the left of center.

No doubt there will be other far-out theories.

[comtec]

2. bad modeling?

LOL Some one had to say it
:tinfoilhat: :)

[DCKit]

3. Tool marks? Bwahahahahahaha.

Wait, you're right. I think I can see the string.

[TechBear_Seattle]

4. The grooves are all radial from the moon's leading edge

From the Wikipedia article for Phobos:

Many grooves and streaks also cover the oddly shaped surface. The grooves are typically less than 30 m deep, 100 to 200 m wide, and up to 20 km in length, and were originally assumed to have been the result of the same impact that created Stickney. Analysis of results from the Mars Express spacecraft, however, revealed that the grooves are not in fact radial to Stickney, but are centered on the leading apex of Phobos in its orbit (which is not far from Stickney), and must have been excavated by material ejected into space by impacts on the surface of Mars. The grooves thus formed as crater chains, and all of them fade away as the trailing apex of Phobos is approached. They have been grouped into 12 or more families of varying age, presumably representing at least 12 Martian impact events.

[eppur_se_muova]

5. No doubt ...

[fla nocount]

6. Not grooves, welds, Phobos is the Ark. n/t

[DCKit]

7. You are SO going to hell for that. n/t