Russia sends an automatic station to the Mars satellite.
What is he looking for in a distant land
For Phobos - one of the two satellites of the Red Planet - Russian scientists equip the automatic station "Phobos-Grunt". As Viktor Khartov, general director of NPO named after Lavochkin, an enterprise that has been creating this probe for many years, said the start is scheduled for early November 2011.
"Monolith" is located almost in the very center of Phobos on a flat terrain.
The journey will take approximately 11 months. According to the plan, the station must first go into Mars orbit, stay there for some time, perhaps six months. And, having chosen a place, send a lander to Phobos. He must collect local soil - at least 100 grams - and deliver it to Earth. Together with terrestrial bacteria, which will be taken on the journey.
After analyzing the soil, scientists will try to understand where the satellite from Mars came from, what it actually consists of, whether it is a captured asteroid or a body knocked out of Mars itself.
Promotional video:
And bacteria that either survive or die will demonstrate how space affects microorganisms. And can they, in principle, move around the Universe, for example, in meteorites.
On Phobos, scientific instruments will remain, with the help of which it will be possible to monitor both the affairs on the satellite and on Mars itself.
Colleagues from the European Space Agency help Russian specialists in choosing the landing site.
There is some kind of "monolith"
It is possible that finding out the "pedigree" of Phobos will not be the most interesting thing. Indeed, as some quite serious researchers believe, there is a very mysterious object on this satellite of Mars. The legendary astronaut Edwin (Buzz) Aldrin, the man who was the second to set foot on the lunar surface back in 1969, publicly called on to pay close attention to him. On the air of one of the US TV channels, he said:
- We must visit the satellites of Mars. And first of all Phobos. There is "Monolith" - a very strange structure for this small space object in the shape of a potato, about 26 kilometers in diameter, which orbits Mars every 7 hours.
According to Buzz, everyone who has seen the photo of the Monolith on Phobos has no doubt that it was installed there. They only ask who did it.
Buzz doesn't know either. Apparently, this gives a very vague and philosophical answer: "Well, the Universe has set … If you want, God has set …"
Ufologists far from God, of course, believe that the thing was left from some aliens.
The object was discovered back in 1998. It was found by researchers Efrain Palermo and Len Fleming in images (SPS252603 and SPS252603) transmitted by the Mars Global Surveyor probe. It was they who named the object, which looks like a slab, or a tower, or a dome about 76 meters high, “Monolith”. It rises on the side facing Mars.
NASA does not comment on the presence of the artifact on Phobos. But one day, a representative of the Canadian space agency, Dr. Alan Hildebrand, spoke out:
“If we get to this Monolith, we may not need to fly anywhere else.
"Monolith" in the images of the Mars Global Surveyor probe (top and right). Below is a computer reconstruction of the object.
At the same time, NASA, for example, does not hesitate to send spacecraft over the famous "Sphinx" several times - at the request of the public. People then look at the images transmitted to Earth with interest. Are they happy to wonder if the object is man-made? Or is it just such a mountain? Will an attempt be made to take a closer look at the mysterious object on the satellite of Mars during the Phobos-Grunt mission? Not yet known. The NGO named after Lavochkin refused to answer this question. The Space Research Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences reported that it was the first time they heard about the "Monolith".