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Phobos
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In Doom Episode 1 "Knee Deep in the Dead" you find yourself the larger moon of Mars, Phobos ("FOH bus"). The 9 levels in this episode take place in various buildings including computer stations, laboratories, nuclear plans and a military base. These buildings are located in a crater of Phobos but it is unknown which one. |
Phobos was discovered in 1877 by A.Hall (1829-1907) an American astronomer who used a new reactor with 65cm objective at the Washington Observatory. Phobos is 6000 km away from Mars and is the closest satellite to its primary than any other in the solar system. It's dimensions are 28 x 22 x 18 km, the shape of Phobos is not round like most moons but rather a potato shape, it has been speculated that it was a meteorite that got caught in the gravitational Field of Mars. The surface of Phobos is covered with craters and a layer of rock and dust, known as regolith, made from impacts from meteorite in the past. Phobos weighs 1.08e16 kg, it revolves around Mars once every 7 hours and 39 minutes. The most interesting feature on Phobos is the crater Stickney which measures 10 km in diameter, it was named after A.Hall's wife. |
Photo taken from Viking 1 in 1977 |
Photo taken of Phobos against Mars from the probe 'Phobos 2' |
The moon was named Phobos (Fear) after the myological companions of the god of war. It has been photographed by Mariner 9, Viking 1, Viking 2, and Phobos. Mariner 9 in 1971 took the first detailed photos of Phobos, it was the first probe to orbit Mars and was launched not long after its sister probe Mariner 8 failed to Launch. Viking 1 was launched on August 20, 1975 and in 1977 took photos of Phobos before sending its lander to the surface of Mars to search for Martian micro-organisms. Viking 2 was launched in on September 9, 1975 it was almost identical to Viking 1 but its seismometer worked. It performed the same tasks as its it's sister lander and also took photos of Phobos. There were two Phobos spacecraft sent in 1988 the first one failed but the second managed to return some photos of Phobos before it failed too. |
Landscape of Phobos as pictured in Doom
Bibliography
Web:
·Phobos
·Mars, Phobos, and Deimos
Book:
·The Hamlyn Encyclopedia of Stars & Planets, by Antonin Rükl, edited by Storm Dunlop, Published by The Hamlyn Publishing Group Limited, a division of the Octopus Publishing Group PLC, 1988.
·Geographica, Published by Gordon Cheers and Random House Australia, 1999
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