The Japan Broadcasting Corporation (NHK), in collaboration with the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA), recently announced that it is planning to photograph the mysterious moons of red planet Mars with high defined cameras that can shoot 8K ultra-high-definition images. If this ‘shoot the moon’ mission becomes successful, it will be the first time in history that Martian mystery and its moons are captured in much more detail.
To give fuel to this mission, both the organizations are coming together to develop the “Super Hi-Vision Camera.’ This camera would be attached to the JAXA’s Martian Moons eXploration (MMX) spacecraft set to launch in 2024 for moon shoot.
The MMX mission, as it is named, was given a green signal by the Japanese government back in February 2020. It will attempt to uncover many mysteries surrounding the origin of Mars’s two relatively tiny moons, namely Deimos and Phobos by shoot photos of it. It is highly unusual that the moons orbit the Red Planet at dangerously close distances. The Deimos’ orbit takes the moon as close as 3,700 miles away from the surface of Mars. This is about only one percent of the distance between the Earth and our Moon.
The spacecraft will also carry 11 scientific instruments to the Martian planet in addition to the high defined camera. The spacecraft will also even attempt to gather a ground sample from the moon Phobos’ surface before taking back the long trip home. The camera will click ultra-HD images of Martian space station and Mars and broadcast them for everyone to see. The new photo files will be locally stored on a suitable recording device attached to the MMX spacecraft and will hopefully get back on Earth as scheduled and planned.
About Mars Moons
The moons of Mars, Deimos, and Phobos are the smallest in the solar system. Phobos is comparatively larger than Deimos and orbits only 3,700 miles (6,000 kilometers) above the Mars planet. No other known moon in the solar system orbits so closer to its planet. The Phobos moon spins around Mars three times a day, while Deimos, located far away than Phobos, takes 30 hours for each orbit. The Phobos moon is a spiraling inward moon approaching around six feet closer to Mars each century. Within 50 million years, the moon would either crash into Mars or split up and form a ring around the Mars planet.
Phobos and Deimos moons always present the same face to Mars. Both are lumpy, filled with craters, and are covered in dust and lose rocks. The moons of Mars are the darker objects in the solar system. They seem to be made of carbon-rich rock that is mixed with ice and asteroids.