Mars Biggest Moon Phobos Image Captured By ISRO Mangalyaan
ISRO (Indian Space Research Organisation) has achieved yet another feat for India technological progress within the space sector. Now, the Mars Colour Camera (MCC) aboard ISRO Mars Orbiter Mission, also called the Mangalyaan, has managed to capture an image of Phobos, the foremost important Moon of Mars which the ISRO described as ‘mysterious’.
“A recent image of the mysterious Moon of Mars, Phobos, as captured by India Mars Orbiter Mission,” read a tweet posted by ISRO.
“Mars Colour Camera (MCC) onboard Mars Orbiter Mission (MOM) has imaged Phobos, the closest and largest Moon of Mars, on 1st July when MOM was about 7200 km from Mars & at 4200 km from Phobos,” detailed a post by ISRO on its official website.
The post elaborated, “Spatial resolution of the image is 210 m this is often a composite image generated from 6 MCC frames and has been colour corrected”.
India Premier Space Agency further explained that Phobos is actually believed to be made up of carbonaceous chondrites.
“The violent phase that Phobos has encountered is seen within the huge section gouged out from a past collision (Stickney crater) and bouncing ejecta (volcanic eruption or meteoritic impact),” the post detailed, “Stickney, the foremost important crater (hole on celestial object) on Phobos in conjunction with the other craters (Shklovsky, Roche & Grildrig) are also seen during this image.”
Mars has two moons, with the innermost and thus the larger of the two being Phobos, while the other being Deimos. Both moons were discovered in 1877 by American Astronomer Hall.
Phobos is understood as after the Greek God Phobos, a son of Ares(Mars) and Aphrodite (Venus) and thus the personification of fear (cf. phobia).
The natural satellite is just 6,000 km from the Martian (hypothetical or frictional inhabitant of mars) surface, making it the only known moon that’s this on the edge of its primary body. It is so close that it orbits Mars much faster than Mars rotates.
The defining surface feature is that the massive impact crater, Stickney, which takes up a substantial proportion of the moon surface.
Source : Affairscloud
The Mars Orbiter Mission was launched on Nov 5, 2013. Mangalyaan had entered Mars orbit on Sep 24, 2014, after travelling for over 10 months to cover the space of 666 million km to achieve the destination.
It is equipped with five instruments, including a sensor to trace methane, a color camera, and a thermal imaging spectrometer to map the surface and mineral wealth of the Mars. MOM was also adjudged one of the 25 innovations made in 2014 by ‘TIME’ magazine, which described it as a technological feat which can allow India to flex its “interplanetary muscles”.
In its experience of orbiting the Mars for five years, the Mars Orbiter achieved stunning feats- The 1,350kg weighing (on Earth) craft had taken pictures one among the 2 Martian moons — Phobos, while it had been travelling west to east over Mars in its typical orbit, took pictures of regional duster activities over hemisphere of Mars, full disc image of the world , showing Elysium – the second largest volcanic province on the natural satellite.
The ‘Mangalyaan‘ mission made India the first country within the planet to successfully launch its mission to Mars on the very first try. Mangalyaan cost Rs 450 crore making it the foremost cost effective inter-planetary mission ever. it had been completed in just 15 months.
