Phobos monolith

The Phobos monolith is a large rock on the surface of Mars' moon Phobos.^[1] It is a boulder, about 85 m (279 ft) across and 90 m (300 ft) tall.^[2][3] A monolith is a geological feature consisting of a single massive piece of rock. Monoliths also occur naturally on Earth, but it has been suggested that the Phobos monolith may be a piece of impact ejecta. The monolith is a bright object near Stickney crater, described as a "building sized" boulder, which casts a prominent shadow.^[4][5] It was discovered by Efrain Palermo, who did extensive surveys of Martian probe imagery, and later confirmed by Lan Fleming, an imaging sub-contractor at NASA Johnson Space Center.^[6]

The general vicinity of the monolith is a proposed landing site by Optech and the Mars Institute, for a robotic mission to Phobos known as PRIME (Phobos Reconnaissance and International Mars Exploration).^[4] The PRIME mission would be composed of an orbiter and lander, and each would carry four instruments designed to study various aspects of Phobos' geology.^[7] At present, PRIME has not been funded and does not have a projected launch date. Former astronaut Buzz Aldrin has spoken about the Phobos monolith and his support for a mission to Phobos.^[8]

The object appears in Mars Global Surveyor images SP2-52603^[9] and SP2-55103,^[10] dated 1998. The object is unrelated to another monolith located on the surface of Mars, which NASA noted as an example of a common surface feature in that region.^[11]

In fiction

The Phobos monolith features in Alastair Reynolds' 2012 science-fiction novel Blue Remembered Earth, wherein its surface has been entirely carved by visiting astronauts into the semblance of a wrecked spaceship.

The debut studio album by The Claypool Lennon Delirium, consisting of American multi-instrumentalists Sean Lennon and Primus's Les Claypool, released on June 3, 2016, is called Monolith of Phobos.^[12]

See also

References

External links

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