This video is called H344-Mars Express 2.
From the BBC:
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.
How these were generated is not entirely understood. Some scientists believe they have been gouged out by material thrown up from the surface of Mars by space impacts.
Other researchers think they could have resulted from the surface regolith, or soil, slipping into internal fissures.
The images are sure to provide new insights. At their best, the pictures have a resolution of 3.7m per pixel.They will also assist the Russians in their planning of the Phobos-Grunt mission. Launching next year, this venture will try to place a spacecraft on the moon to gather samples for return to Earth.
PHOBOS – MARTIAN MOON
Measures 27 x 22 x 18km; could be a captured asteroid
Orbits less than 6,000km above Mars; slowly falling inwards
First high-res probe images taken by Mariner 9 in 1971
Dedicated Soviet probes, Phobos 1 & 2, were lost
Its 10km-wide Stickney crater records huge impact
See also here.
NEW MARS PICTURES: Water Ice Exposed by Meteor Strikes: here.
California planetarium: here.
Forty years since the first Moon landing: here.
Fake Dutch “moon rock” in museum: here.
ScienceDaily (Feb. 17, 2010) — Mars Express has just began a series of flybys of Phobos, the largest moon of Mars. The campaign will reach its crescendo on 3 March, when the spacecraft will set a new record for the closest pass to Phobos, skimming the surface at just 50 km. The data collected could help untangle the origin of this mysterious moon: here.
Comets, not asteroids, to blame for moon’s scarred face: here.
Halley’s Comet Likely Seen By Ancient Greeks: The ancient Greeks probably saw Halley’s comet in 466 B.C.: here.
Mars’s mysterious elongated crater: Orcus Patera is an enigmatic elliptical depression near Mars’s equator: here.
Mars rovers mark seven years on the planet’s surface: here.
Stardust spacecraft gives second glimpse of comet Tempel 1: here.
NASA confirms water on Mars:
The agency’s robotic Phoenix Lander “touched and
tasted” the Red Planet’s frozen water, a mission
scientist says.
http://www.world-science.net/othernews/080731_mars-water
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Martian salt not bad for life: scientists
http://www.world-science.net/othernews/080806_perchlorates
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On-and-off floods formed Mars valleys,
study finds:
Floods that created distinctive features of Mars
were not of a catastrophic sort, scientists claim.
http://www.world-science.net/othernews/080908_mars-valleys
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Something beyond visible universe
detected?:
Scientists have measured an unexpected motion in
distant clusters of galaxies.
http://www.world-science.net/othernews/080923_wmap
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Vast underground glaciers reported on Mars:
The findings could present new avenues for the
search for life or provide water to support future
exploration, scientists claim.
http://www.world-science.net/othernews/081120_mars
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Wobbly planets could reveal Earth-like moons:
Moons outside our Solar System capable of supporting
life may have just become easier to find.
http://www.world-science.net/othernews/081212_moons
* Distant moons may have liquid oceans:
Tidal motions may generate enough heat to maintain
liquid oceans within the outer planets’ icy moons, a
scientist says.
http://www.world-science.net/othernews/081210_moons
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Materials for “Earths” may be common in
universe:
New findings suggest rocky planets are a normal
occurrence, astronomers say.
http://www.world-science.net/othernews/090105_planets
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Black holes came first, astronomers conclude:
Scientists may have solved a cosmic chicken-and-egg
problem.
http://www.world-science.net/othernews/090106_blackholes
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Our galaxy no longer “little sister”:
Fasten your seat belts: our galaxy spins faster,
weighs more, and is more likely to collide than we
thought, researchers claim.
http://www.world-science.net/othernews/090106_milkyway
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Cosmologists aim to reveal time’s first moments:
Scientists want to test whether random, microscopic
fluctuations in the fabric of space and time spawned
the universe.
http://www.world-science.net/othernews/090216_origins
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Like Earth, if you overlook the lava
everywhere?:
A European satellite has revealed a planet only
twice as large as Earth orbiting a distant star,
astronomers say.
http://www.world-science.net/othernews/090204_exo-7b
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Missing asteroids explained?:
Scientists have reported a case of missing asteroids
— and a possible explanation.
http://www.world-science.net/othernews/090226_asteroids
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Martian mountain may answer big question:
One Martian volcano is about three times Mount
Everest’s height. But it’s the small details that
two geologists are looking at.
http://www.world-science.net/othernews/090305_olympus
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Astronomers catch a “shooting star”:
Asteroid 2008 TC3 has a humdrum name but an unusual
distinction.
http://www.world-science.net/othernews/090325_meteor
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2009-06-18 17:35
Italian finds lake on Mars
Ancient deposit ‘prime target’ in search for past life
(ANSA) – Washington, June 18 – An Italian astrophysicist working in the United States has found evidence of a huge lake that once existed on Mars.
Gaetano Di Achille of the University of Colorado said shoreline ridges seen by the Mars Orbiter provided ”the first unequivocal evidence” of a lake believed to have formed ”at least three billion years ago”.
He said the lake was some 200 square km in area and at least 450m deep.
”The ancient lake bed will be a prime target for future missions in search of past life” on the Red Planet, he said.
Most astrobiologists believe any sign of life on Mars will take the form of subterranean microorganisms which may have burrowed under the planet’s surface from the bottom of lakes.
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Germany ponders moon mission
Germany: The national aerospace co-ordinator has announced that Berlin may invest in an unmanned mission to the moon in the next decade.
Peter Hintze said that the mission, which he predicted would cost 1.5 billion euros (£1.3bn) over five years, would land robots instead of German astronauts on the moon.
http://www.morningstaronline.co.uk/index.php/world/world_in_brief__103
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Life on the Red Planet? Methane results
boost hopes:
A study leaves microbes as one of just two
possible explanations for how a “marsh gas” got on
the red planet, according to scientists.
http://www.world-science.net/othernews/091209_mars-methane
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Comets may have come from other solar
systems:
Many of the best known comets may have been born
orbiting other stars, according to a new theory.
http://www.world-science.net/othernews/100610_comets
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Ocean covered a third of Mars, study concludes:
An ancient ocean was probably part of an Earth-like
water cycle that included rain, scientists say.
http://www.world-science.net/othernews/100612_mars
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