Mission to Phobos

I've been wanting to depict Phobos from that angle for a long long time...
In case you don't know, Phobos is the main moon of Mars (the other being Deimos) and rotates close to Mars (about 9,400 km from its surface - considering Mars has a diameter of 6,779 km), which means when on Phobos, you would have a majestic sight on Mars. Also, Phobos has almost no gravity, which means you could almost approach it as an asteroid, which differs a lot from approaching our Moon.
I've worked around 6 hours on this photomanipulation, made with Gimp (+ a 3D sphere mapping of Mars with Blender).

All on Linux-Ubuntu.

ENJOY IT IN HD on my DeviantArt gallery.

The scale of Phobos

This new picture is to be an exception here, as it is not located on Mars ! Since I've started being interested by Mars, I am fascinated by the scale of the planet and its features, and of course, there is Phobos, its largest moon (the other one being Deimos). What better way to give a scale than to compare with actual things on Earth ?
So, here is Phobos standing over my town Grenoble in the Alpes (eastern France). Phobos' dimensions are 26,8 x 18,4 km. If you carefully look at the center of the picture, you'll see 2 helicopters, still quite far from the "big rock".
Here too is a companion picture showing in satellite view how Grenoble and Phobos compare. We can see there that the entire town of Grenoble would easily fit inside Stickney crater, Phobos' largest crater (on the right).

I made this with TheGimp on Linux-Ubuntu. A 5 hours work.

In the Greek Mythology, the twins Phobos and Deimos ("fear" and "dread") were god sons of Ares ("Mars").

Spider robots mining Phobos

After a 2 years pause, I am finally coming back to photo montages of Mars !
And here is my first new one.
In his Mars novels, Kim Stanley Robinson tells how asteroids and moons are digged by spider robots, for mining and for setting space stations. Years before, I did a storyboard sketch of this scene, but here it is now in a highly detailed montage. Here, it's not an asteroid. This is Phobos, the largest Martian moon. For the robots, I've used photos of actual spiders.
(Made with The Gimp on Linux-Ubuntu)

Phobos en haute résolution

Cet été, la sonde européenne Mars Express a fait un relevé photographique de Phobos, une des 2 lunes de Mars. Le site de l'ESA ouvre grand la galerie, et ça vaut le détour.
Phobos est encore mal connu, mais en 2009, la Russie va envoyer sa sonde Phobos-Grunt dont l'objectif est de s'y poser et d'y prélever des échantillons.
Dans Mars la Rouge, KSR imagine que Phobos est creusé et habité par une ville troglodyte.
J'aime beaucoup l'esthétique dramatique de cet énorme rocher gris dans l'espace noir. Il contraste sacrément avec le rouge de Mars.