There is good reason to think Mars certainly had a thicker, denser, warmer atmosphere in the past – and an ocean or sea in the northern Vastitas Borealis region and possibly elsewhere too. The Mars rovers seem to have shown liquid water used to exist in some regions & plausibly microscopic life too.

@12. Ken B : Thanks for that explanation. It makes sense now.

@15. Keith Bowden Says:

QuietDesperation: “That’s no moo- oh, wait, yes it is.
Then again…”
I’m not being snarky but shouldn’t we differentiate between larger spherical moons and smaller irregularly-shaped satellites?

I think so too & would agree with (#20.) CB – although I’d suggest the term “moons” for the larger rounded ones & “moonlets” for the smaller irregular ones.

For instance, Pluto would then boast one moon – Charon – & two moonlets – Nyx and Hydra. Mars would have no moons but just two moonlets, etc ..

(I’m fine with the Pluto reclassification, though it still “feels” odd)

I’m not. I think it was a terrible decision for a number of logical reasons.

But that’s another story again ..

As far as the origin of the system, I thought I read somewhere that Mars’ lack of magnetic field allows solar wind to erode away the atmosphere, and that the Martian atmosphere may have once been much more substantial. In any case, a thick atmosphere would make the aerobraking capture scenario (slightly) more plausible, I’d think.

@ The Bad Astronomer: I never liked the “asteroid capture” theory either. It’s my understanding that, neglecting massive tidal forces or atmospheric drag or a collision, two bodies approaching each other that aren’t initially in closed orbits around each other are going to end up not in closed orbits around each other. You’d have to have a third body to “slingshot” around the asteroid and give it a push at precisely the right time to get it to stay in orbit. The odds of that happening always seemed…[puts on sunglasses] astronomical to me.

Holy mother dang.

This pic is AMAZING !! Actually, it’s amazing to the point of being unbelievable. Mars is so close and flat that for a minute I thought this was fake. Is an angle like that for observing Phobos (ultra-high magnification or not) even possible?
It isn’t just the universe that never ceases to amaze – it’s the techniques of our own imaging scientists!!
(insert Reptillian conspiracy here)

@#28 Meskine: I’m eagerly awaiting their next probe, the Europa-Gurgle.

Phobos is one of my favored locations to visit, if they ever manage to get interplanetary spacecraft down to my price range It’s an intriguing place, and I share a name with the guy who discovered it

I’ve visited Phobos before, and let me tell you, you do NOT want to visit. The place is absolutely stuffed with Hellspawn, and the humans they’ve turned into gun-toting zombies. That’s right: On Phobos, the zombies shoot back. And they’re the pleasant part.

I give it 1 star.

I was wondering the same thing. Wikipedia says Phobos has a mean radius of 11.1 km , or 6.9 miles. Just by eyeballing the photo, I was trying to imagine something the size of the Sears Tower (excuse me, “Willis” Tower) on the surface. It’s 442m tall, so we’re talking about something like 4% of Phobos’ average radius. On my monitor, the Phobos in the barsoomed pic is about 200 pixels across, giving a radius of about 100px.

So if one of the world’s tallest skyscrapers were sitting atop Phobos in this picture, you could see it, as a 4-pixel tall speck.

Sounds good to me. How about we name the ones in hydrostatic equilibrium after the largest such example, and call them “Titanoids”.

Yes.

I really hope that they do not screw it up.

Ha ha ha ha! Dream on.

By the way why are the cameras getting all the attention? Imaging spectrometers are like cameras but also record the spectrum at the same time. How cool is that?!

Then again…

I’m not being snarky (I’m fine with the Pluto reclassification, though it still “feels” odd), but shouldn’t we differentiate between larger spherical moons and smaller irregularly-shaped satellites?

One of the best pics I’ve ever seen of Phobos against Mars.

Gary 7

I must admit I’m not sure what the whole deal is with the :

It’s rabbit^h^h^h Phobos season!

title is or what you’re meaning about backspacing there?

Perhaps you’re not familiar with Bugs Bunny cartoons? (Bugs and Daffy try telling Elmer Fudd to shoot the other one — It’s duck season. It’s rabbit season. It’s duck season. Etc.)

The “^h” backspacing thing is a common way of saying something online while pretending not to say it. (Such as BA’s oft-used “hive overmind” references.)

So, this was his way of making a reference to Bugs/Daffy, whch gives the real title “It’s Phobos Season” a meaningful point of reference.)

The problem, as pointed out by Unaspammer, is that he only used three “backspaces”, leaving “rab” intact.

Another common form is “^W”, which is used to “backspace” an entire word, such as “I was told by that idiot upstairs^W^W^W the CEO to do [something]“.