11 January, 2011

MARSIS strikes Phobos again!

This note and images were just sent in from the MARSIS Team - it appears they did in fact receive some nice returns during Sunday's Phobos flyby. The instrument's 40-metre long antenna is usually used to send low-frequency radio waves towards Mars, which are then reflected from any surface they encounter.

The team wrote:

"The multi-frequency sounding radar MARSIS successfully observed Phobos during the latest Mars Express science campaign on 9 January 2011.

MARSIS collected two segments of data containing 6000 individual echoes, acquired in 50 sec of operation. The distance from Mars Express to Phobos was in the range 180 to 230 km, using a frequency of 4 MHz.

The ground track covered new areas not explored by previous flybys. From a first analysis of the topography and based on previous experience, the layered appearance of the image, also called 'clutter' is caused by delayed radar reflections from the surrounding Phobos surface shape.

Fig. 1 (not copied/Dutch) shows the radargram of the first segment of the flyby. The top white line is the surface signature of Phobos, while the clutter or sub-surface contributions are the bottom ones.

Ground processing of the data for one single frame, is shown in Fig. 2 with a Signal-to-Noise Ratio (SNR) of about 18 dB. The first peak represents the Phobos surface, while the second one could be either clutter or subsurface returns ( emphasis Dutch). The distance between the two main peaks in time is about 5.7µs (microseconds).

Further and more accurate analysis will now be done to improve the signal to noise level and the range resolution, allowing a better science interpretation."
- The Marsis team

Fig.2

IMAGE ( [link to img.photobucket.com] )

source:
[link to webservices.esa.int]

ESA published a similar MARSIS raw plot of one of the radar returns during a previous Phobos flyby on March 7, 2010:


IMAGE ( [link to img.photobucket.com] )


The official ESA commentary, released with this raw MARSIS radar plot:

"... after the ground-processing of science data, it was found that the radar worked successfully during the flyby. The figure above shows echoes reflected by Phobos as the highest peak in the signal, clearly above the noise level. Scientific analysis of the results is still ongoing. The main quest is the determination of the origin of detected echoes: are they reflections from various surface features of Phobos, or have they been produced by the internal structure of the moon ...

The scientific analysis of existing and future data will provide us with new and unique insights on the nature of Phobos’ interior ...."
source: [link to webservices.esa.int]

Richard Hoagland on this MARSIS data:

"Which will allow any competent electronics or radio engineer "out there" to actually calculate -- using this official, MARSIS published data -- precisely "how big" the internal reflection "structures" inside Phobos have to be ... to appear as they do (above), as "wildly varying, multiple radar echoes (and absorptions), separated by "tens of microseconds" in the radio echoes coming back from inside Phobos ..." on this first official graph ....

Answers in those signals to questions like, "how large is the volume which forms the 'super big peak'?" (above) -- corresponding to "about 14 microseconds in echo-width" -- where ... the signal abruptly rises "straight up" ~ 47 dB (!) -- before falling back to the previously "low," 47dB below that peak intensity ...?

Answer:

~200 feet wide ....

Obviously -- some kind of "uniquely-shaped, right-angle internal corner reflection" ... part of a much larger "90-degree cavern or room ..." (hence, the relatively "huge" signal strength ...) from deep inside Phobos.

Which, according to the verbal description coming from our ESA source, is divided into "three ... or four, major, quarter-to-half-mile-wide geometric chambers ... distributed tetrahedrally inside a denser, partially-hollow RF-translucent interior structure ...."

And -- the echo ranges displayed by this same data ....

The variability of reflected "echoes" (the vertical axis of the above graph) -- compared to that expected "from an ordinary solid space rock" -- is literally off-scale; again, the echo return from the Phobos-ranging spanning over 60 dB in total energy amplitude ...

Equivalent to a "sound volume" change--

Of over A MILLION TO ONE!!

[Check it out ... at one of the many on-line "dB (decibel) calculators" (ah ... the endless "wonders of the Net" ...).]

No natural "space rock" could possibly possess such an enormous range of "natural radar absorbers and reflectors"; nothing "natural" could reflect (or absorb) EM energy ... that way ... across so many orders of magnitude.

Nothing, that is--

Except--

"A non-natural ... artificially-designed ... selectively-absorbing, manufactured 'stealthy' EM material ...."

In other words -- the MARSIS radar reflections being officially published on the official ESA Phobos website (again) ... contained explicit scientific data, from multiple perspectives, which strongly "supported the idea that this is what radar echoes would look like, coming back from inside 'a huge ... geometric ... hollow ET spaceship' ...!"

After getting an inkling of the "clearly artificial implications" of the enormous intensity-ranges represented by the published Phobos graph (above), I also saw for the first time that these "enormous MARSIS power variations" -- between the deep radar absorptions and bright reflections -- were not only huge--

They were also, distinctly, "geometrically non-random!"

In fact, they were the primary source of the decidedly "internal, 3-D geometric-looking" radar signature ....

The concurrence of all three of these independent Mars Express experiments -- "imaging" ... "internal mass distribution" (tracking) ... and "internal radar imaging" -- ALL now agreed that "the interior of Phobos is 'partially hollow ... with internal, repeating, MAJOR geometric "voids" inside it ....'"

Meaning that--

Phobos IS artificial!"

source: [link to www.enterprisemission.com]

I think Richard will wait to see the first pictures around January 21, 2011, but I expect he will write additional comments on Phobos soon in an update on enterprisemission.com.

As Richard always says: Stay tuned........