Latest news with #Deimos
Yahoo
2 days ago
- General
- Yahoo
Haunting Image Shows The Moon Deimos From The Surface of Mars
There's not much hustle and bustle on Mars. The red planet is inhabited by no-one that we know of, except the robotic rovers toiling away to excavate its secrets. The only sound you'd hear is the whispering of the wind. There are no crowds, not much in the way of turmoil (unless you happen to get caught in one of Mars's wild, global sandstorms). Nevertheless, a new image taken by Perseverance from its lonely vantage point in the Jezero Crater seems to convey the serenity possible on Mars like no other. It was taken in the liminal pre-dawn darkness, at 4:27 am local time on 1 March 2025. The rover aimed its left Navcam above the horizon, and for a total exposure time of 52 seconds, stared at the sky – specifically, Deimos, the smaller and more distant of the two Martian moons. At just 16 kilometers (10 miles) across, and orbiting at an average distance of around 20,000 kilometers from the Martian surface, Deimos is quite small when viewed from Perseverance's perspective. It looks like a bright star in the sky. Mars has two moons; the other is Phobos. They were named for the sons of god of war Ares, the Greek counterpart for the Roman god Mars; their names mean fear (Phobos) and dread (Deimos). There are lots of mysteries about these little potato-moons. Scientists want to know where they came from, and where they are going. Simulations suggest that Phobos, which orbits Mars closer than any other moon in the Solar System, and whose orbit is shrinking, will one day be torn asunder by the gravity of Mars and become a faint ring around its equator. Deimos, at a much safer distance, is likely to escape this carnage; its fate, however, is not clear. Observations such as this haunting image captured by a lonely robot on the Martian surface are the tiny puzzle pieces scientists use to conduct their painstaking investigations thereon. Stunning Images Reveal The Sun's Surface in Unprecedented Detail The Universe's Most Powerful Cosmic Rays May Finally Be Explained China's Tianwen-2 Launches to Grab First 'Living Fossil' Asteroid Samples
Yahoo
23-05-2025
- Science
- Yahoo
Japan tests its Mars moon sample-return probe ahead of 2026 launch (photo)
When you buy through links on our articles, Future and its syndication partners may earn a commission. Japan is putting its Martian Moons eXploration (MMX) spacecraft through a series of tests ahead of its launch to Mars next year. MMX is a complex mission to collect samples from the moon Phobos and deliver them to Earth to solve the riddle of the origin of the tiny Martian satellite. The spacecraft has been put into a vacuum chamber to test its readiness for deep space, the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) announced on May 15 via its official mission channel on the social media platform X. "MMX is undergoing a thermal vacuum test, in which the spacecraft is placed in a vacuum chamber where the environment simulates outer space and the operation for each of the onboard instruments is checked," JAXA stated. The image shows the spacecraft's return and exploration modules, while MMX's little IDEFIX rover can be seen in the center, attached to the exploration module. The 55-pound (25 kilograms) IDEFIX rover was developed by the German Aerospace Center (known by the German acronym DLR) and the French space agency Centre National d'Etudes Spatiales (CNES). Related stories: — New Japanese spacecraft aims to explore the mysterious moons of Mars — Mars: Everything you need to know about the Red Planet — Mars moons: Facts about Phobos and Deimos A main objective of MMX is to determine whether Phobos and the smaller companion moon Deimos are captured asteroids, or formed from fragments blown into orbit after a giant impact struck Mars. The mission also aims to provide new insights into the history of the Red Planet and planetary formation in general across the wider solar system. MMX is due to be launched on Japan's flagship H3 rocket from Tanegashima Space Center during the next Mars launch window, in November-December 2026. It was earlier scheduled to launch in the previous launch window in 2024, but this was delayed due to issues with the H3 rocket. If all goes well, MMX will arrive in orbit around Mars in 2027 to begin mapping and analyzing Phobos and Deimos and search for a landing site. MMX will then land on Phobos in 2029 to collect around 0.35 oz (10 grams) of samples. These are expected to be delivered to Earth in 2031.
Yahoo
21-05-2025
- Science
- Yahoo
A NASA Mars rover looked up at a moody sky. What it saw wasn't a star.
In the hours just before dawn, NASA's Perseverance rover adjusted its gaze toward the heavens and saw a brilliant point of light. That bright sparkle wasn't a morning star beaming from distant space, but something more mysterious — Mars' shiest moon, Deimos. The rover used one of its navigation cameras at a long-exposure setting to capture the new image. "It's definitely a mood," NASA said of the rare photo in a post on X. SEE ALSO: NASA rover captures an aurora from Mars surface for the first time Because the rover took the image in the dark with an almost one-minute exposure time, the scene appears hazy. Credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech Mars has two moons, Phobos and Deimos, but scientists know relatively little about them — especially Deimos, the smallest of the two. Both moons are "blacker than coal and look like battered potatoes," according to the European Space Agency, which has studied the pair with its Mars Express spacecraft. Right now researchers aren't sure where the moons came from, and it remains a source of scientific debate. Some believe they could have been asteroids captured in orbit around the Red Planet. Others think they could be chunks of Mars itself, blown out by a giant collision billions of years ago. Nearly all of the images of Deimos, a city-sized moon at roughly 7.5 miles wide, have been taken just like this new one, from the Martian surface by rovers. Because the moon is tidally locked — meaning one full spin matches the amount of time it takes to complete its orbit of Mars — only one of its sides has been seen on the Red Planet. NASA's Perseverance rover was on its way to a new exploration site on the rim of Jezero crater, dubbed Witch Hazel Hill, when it conducted the Deimos photoshoot. Though Perseverance took the image on March 1, NASA just released it to the public. Because the rover took the image in the dark with an almost one-minute exposure time, the scene appears hazy. Many of the white dots in the sky likely aren't distant stars but digital noise. Some others could be cosmic rays, space particles traveling close to the speed of light, according to NASA. Two of the brighter specks are Regulus and Algieba, stars about 78 and 130 light-years away from the solar system respectively, in the constellation Leo. Though little is known about Deimos, another European spacecraft recently captured unprecedented views of the moon's far side. The Hera mission, which will study the asteroid NASA intentionally crashed into three years ago, flew by the Red Planet on March 12, just 11 days after the rover looked up. Hera's flyby wasn't a detour but a necessary maneuver to put the spacecraft on the right trajectory toward its ultimate asteroid destination. Swinging within 625 miles of Deimos, Hera used Martian gravity to adjust its course. Queen cofounder Brian May, who is an astrophysicist when he isn't playing guitar, is among the team that processed the Deimos images. "You feel like you're there, and you see the whole scene in front of you," he said during a news conference in March. "The science that we get from this is colossal, and I think we're all like children."
Yahoo
17-05-2025
- Science
- Yahoo
Space photo of the day for May 16, 2025
When you buy through links on our articles, Future and its syndication partners may earn a commission. NASA's Perseverance rover captured this pre-dawn view of Mars' moon Deimos hanging over a dimly-lit Martian vista. Unlike Earth's moon, which is roughly one-fourth the planet's size, Deimos is less than 1/500th the size of Mars. That means when seen in the night sky — as spotted here at 4:27 a.m. local time on March 1, 2025, the 1,433rd Martian day, or sol, of Perseverance's mission — it appears more like a star than it does a celestial measures only 7.8 miles (12.6 kilometers) across. Deimos completes one orbit around Mars every 30 hours and 17 minutes at an average distance of 14,576 miles (23,458 kilometers) from the Martian surface. At the time this photo was taken, the Perseverance rover was making its way to a location called "Witch Hazel Hill." Another feature, "Woodstock Crater," at center right, is roughly a half-mile (750 meters) away from the rover. This vista is the product of 16 individual shots, which Perseverance assembled into a single photo that it then transmitted to Earth. In the dark before dawn, the rover's left navigation camera needed to use its maximum long-exposure time of 3.28 seconds for each of the 16 snaps. In total, the image represents an exposure time of about 52 image is hazy because the low light and long exposures can add digital noise to Perseverance's images. Many of the white specks in the sky are likely noise, with others the effects of cosmic rays. Two of the brighter white specks are Regulus and Algieba, stars that are part of the constellation Leo. You can read more about Deimos and NASA's Perseverance Mars can also read about another sight in the Martian sky, as Perseverance has become the first spacecraft to spot auroras from the surface of another world.
Express Tribune
16-05-2025
- Science
- Express Tribune
NASA rover observes aurora on Mars
The first visible-light image of a green aurora on Mars (left), taken by NASA's Perseverance rover, is seen next to a comparison image showing the night sky without the aurora but featuring the Martian moon Deimos (right). PHOTO: REUTERS NASA's Perseverance rover has observed an aurora on Mars in visible light for the first time, with the sky glowing softly in green in the first viewing of an aurora from any planetary surface other than Earth. Scientists said the aurora occurred on March 18, 2024, when super-energetic particles from the sun encountered the Martian atmosphere, precipitating a reaction that created a faint glow across the entire night sky. Auroras have been observed previously on Mars by satellites from orbit in ultraviolet wavelengths, but not in visible light. The sun three days earlier had unleashed a solar flare and an accompanying coronal mass ejection - a huge explosion of gas and magnetic energy that brings with it large amounts of solar energetic particles - that traveled outward through the solar system. Mars is the fourth planet from the sun, following Mercury, Venus and Earth. Scientists had simulated the event in advance and prepared instruments on the rover to be ready to observe the expected aurora. Perseverance has two instruments that are sensitive to wavelengths in the visible range, meaning they detect colors human eyes can see. The researchers used the rover's SuperCam spectrometer instrument to identify exactly the wavelength of the green glow and then used its Mastcam-Z camera to take a snapshot of the softly glowing green sky. An aurora forms on Mars the same way as on Earth, with energetic charged particles colliding with atoms and molecules in the atmosphere, exciting them, and causing subatomic particles called electrons to emit light particles called photons. "But on Earth, the charged particles are channeled into the polar regions by our planet's global magnetic field," said Elise Wright Knutsen, a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Oslo's Center for Space Sensors and Systems and lead author of the study published this week in the journal Science Advances. "Mars has no global magnetic field so the charged particles bombarded all of Mars at the same time, which leads to this planet-wide aurora," Knutsen added. The green color occurred because of the interaction between the charged particles from the sun and oxygen in the Martian atmosphere. While auroras can be brilliant, as often seen in Earth's northernmost and southernmost regions, the one observed on Mars was quite faint. "This specific aurora we observed on March 18th of last year would have been too faint for humans to see directly.
