2023-04-24 16:08:13
The probe “Al-Amal” or “Hope” (“Hope” in French), the first interplanetary Arab mission, was able to fly less than 110 km from Deimos, an irregular rocky body of barely 12 km in the shape of a bean which , along with its larger companion Phobos, is one of Mars’ two moons.
It is the first time since the Mars mission Viking in 1977 that a spacecraft has flown so closely over this rarely observed natural satellite, officials of the “Emirates Mars Mission” (EMM) pointed out on Monday during the assembly of the European Geosciences Union taking place in Vienna.
During the overflights of Deimos, which started last January, Hope was able to conduct observations of unparalleled precision, in particular thanks to its EXI camera which provides high-resolution color images in several wavelengths.
These data revealed the “dark side” of the small moon which orbits about 23,000 km from Mars, and whose composition has never been studied.
“We are uncertain of the origins of Phobos and Deimos,” Hessa Al Matroushi, the EMM mission’s chief scientist, said in a statement.
“A long-standing theory is that these are asteroids” from the asteroid belt that were “captured” in the orbit of the red planet, she developed.
But the close observations of the “Hope” probe rather lean towards a planetary origin of this moon. Like its companion Phobos, the celestial body indeed has “infrared properties closer to the basalt rocks of Mars than to those of the meteorite that fell near Lake Tagish” in Canada, “often used by analogy to study Phobos and Deimos”, according to Christopher Edwards, EMIRS instrument scientist.
“Hope” will continue its overflights of Deimos throughout the year 2023 to collect more data, specifies the space agency of the United Arab Emirates, which has decided to extend the Martian mission for an additional year.
In February 2021, the United Arab Emirates placed its “Hope” probe in orbit around Mars, becoming the first Arab country to achieve such a feat.
The wealthy Gulf country also plans to send an unmanned rover to the moon by 2024.
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