Originally posted by ArMaP
Originally posted by Aliensun
But we only can make that judgment because those two key clues slipped by NASA and were released because they didn't pick up on them at the onset.
That taught them a lesson. Malin was engaged thereafter to scrutinize images and withhold any that was deemed not ready for prime time.
Could you explain that a little better? Thanks in advance.
Yes. Phobos has a large percentage of what has been called voids. This was know from early on from the Viking Orbiter probes. There was much
discussion about it in NASA at the time,. (I'll bet that most of that has pulled.) First, they thought it might be ice, having a weight per mass
less that rock by about half. But that meant a lot of ice! Finally, they concluded that it was composed of debris that clumped together there in
that orbit with these voids inbetween. The problem is that the Viking orbiters showed definite ridges that meant that the whole body seemed to be
once a larger chunk itself of something like--heaven forbid--a larger body (maybe a planet?). So the mystery of the voids was never adequately solved
and they don't want to talk about it. Or release the thousands of images taken of the little moon since the Vikings.
The key to the whole business of Phobos is with the grooves. And again, they have discussed and discussed what has caused the grooves some of which
are perfect straight lines and some of them cross intersect others at large angles.
The answer to that is the grooves were caused not by mining, but by the placing of Phobos in its orbit around Mars which, you might know, is virtually
a perfect orbit and unusually close to the planet. The grooves were caused by loose boulders, etc.sliding around on the surface of the on the former
asteroidal body and sometimes off of the body as it was maneuvered, turned and decelerated to its fine, little orbit around Mars.
That is the quick and dirty explanation. There was a far more detailed article on the Sightings website, but it didn't last long for some strange
reason.
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