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The doomed Martian moon Phobos, which is on a slow death spiral above the Red Planet, may hold secrets about the formation of Mars.
Mars’ lunar orbit – which gradually degrades over eons – carries it through charged molecules (ions) of oxygen, carbon, nitrogen and argon that Mars has been releasing from its atmosphere for billions years. Some of these ions could remain on the surface of Phobos, according to a new study.
The study was based on observations from NASA’s Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution (MAVEN) mission, which has been examining the Martian atmosphere since arriving in orbit of the Red Planet in 2014. The spacecraft is also traversing the Phobos orbit five times a day on Earth.
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MAVEN’s suprathermic and thermal ion composition (STATIC) instrument measured Martian ions in Phobos’ orbit, allowing scientists to estimate how deep these ions would plunge on the surface of Phobos if they were to enter collided with the Martian moon. The researchers estimated that the ions did not burrow more than a few hundred nanometers deep, which is 250 times shallower than the width of a human hair, according to a statement from NASA.
“We knew that Mars had lost its atmosphere in space, and now we know that some of it ended up on Phobos,” said lead author Quentin Nénon, a researcher at the University of Space Science Laboratory. California to Berkeley, in the release. (A team from Berkeley also designed and built the STATIC instrument.)
If anyone could study Phobos closely – no one has yet been able to do that – ionic studies could further shed light on the mystery of Mars’ loss of atmosphere and the associated question of when the water stopped flowing at the surface of the planet. . Water is a key ingredient in life, and resolving the debate will help scientists better understand the Red Planet’s chances of survival. While MAVEN has been studying atmospheric loss on Mars for years, Phobos would provide another perspective.
Phobos has been observed from afar, but all efforts to reach the moon so far have failed. Several planned missions never materialized, and even those that were launched did not reach their destination (including the Soviet Union’s Phobos 1 and Phobos 2 in the late 1980s, and the Russian-Chinese mission Phobus-Grunt who never managed to leave Earth orbit. In 2011-12.)
But there is hope for more answers soon, as the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) plans to send the Martian Moons Exploration (MMX) mission to Phobos in 2024. MMX will collect samples from the surface and send them back to Earth. NASA said that in order to answer questions from Nenon’s team about the Martian atmosphere, it would be ideal for MMX to land on the moon side still facing Mars.
“Phobos is locked to Mars, like Earth’s moon is locked to Earth, thus always showing the planet on one side only,” NASA said in the same release. “As a result, the rocks on the near side of Phobos have been bathed for millennia in Martian atoms and molecules. Nenon’s research shows that the uppermost surface layer on the near side of Phobos has been subjected to 20 to 100 times more temperamental Martian ions than its far side. “
Studying Phobos for clues about the Martian atmosphere has a precedent much closer to home. The Earth’s moon also has a record of the atoms of the Sun and the Earth, which appeared in samples from the Apollo human landing missions of the 1960s and 1970s, NASA noted in the same release.
The so-called “airless” moons such as Phobos, its Martian double moon Deimos and the Earth’s moon are subject to little erosion because there is no substantial atmosphere, nor surface processes like wind and earth. water. This slowly changing surface of these moons thus provides a valuable record of the history of the solar system.
Besides looking at the atmosphere of Mars, MMX can also help scientists understand the origin story of Phobos and Deimos. Tiny moons can be asteroids captured by Martian gravity, satellites of Mars formed at the same time as their home planet, or the remnants of a cosmic collision.
An article based on the new study was published on February 1 in Nature Geoscience.
Follow Elizabeth Howell on Twitter @howellspace. follow us on Twitter @Spacedotcom and on Facebook.
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