BLUE
DJ
Dr James O'Donoghue
@interplanetary.bsky.social
Planetary scientist, astronomer & science communicator 🪐. Previously @NASA, now JAXA. Forbes 8 billion under 8 billion
504 followers9 following0 posts
Reposted by Dr James O'Donoghue
ETelizabethtasker.bsky.social

JAXA’s Martian Moons eXploration (MMX) mission to Phobos will carry a rover designed by the French & German space agencies. Testing a rover is challenging—as this article by DLR describes—as conditions on Phobos are largely unknown, and the weak gravity makes the rover design unfit for Earth roaming

Head over heels into adventure
Head over heels into adventure

The MMX rover will explore the mysterious martian moon Phobos

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Reposted by Dr James O'Donoghue

Annnnd with link cards fixed on Bluesky... here is a movie of a (mainly imagined) new world! LP 791-18d is known to be Earth-sized, in tidal lock and tidally heated. Whether this could power volcanism across the planet to support water on the night side is an unknown... but cool to imagine!

LP 791-18d: A tidally locked, volcanic world
LP 791-18d: A tidally locked, volcanic world

Artistic render of how the surface of the exoplanet, LP 791-18d might appear. LP 791-18d is an Earth-sized planet that was discovered in May 2023 (see press ...

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DJ
Dr James O'Donoghue
@interplanetary.bsky.social
Planetary scientist, astronomer & science communicator 🪐. Previously @NASA, now JAXA. Forbes 8 billion under 8 billion
504 followers9 following0 posts