He has used computer technology to reconstruct the far-away moon and compare it to the size of his hometown, Grenoble.

Scale: This computer-generated picture shows that Phobos, despite being one of the smallest moons, completely overshadows the city

Despite the fact that Phobos is relatively close to earth, much about it remains a mystery to astronomers.

The body is highly unusual, being oddly shaped and covered in huge craters.

The craters are the result of a series of meteorite impacts which must have nearly destroyed the moon.

Phobos has been spoken of as one possible target for a manned mission to Mars, as landing on the moon would be simpler than landing on the planet itself.

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Chilling? Why? We’re not due to collide with Phobos any time soon are we?!

- Andy M , W Yorks , 30/7/2012 22:35

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Maybe some of the impacts kept moving it from one course to another..

- Wandering and wondering.392025, Manchester, 30/7/2012 20:59

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Mark, England, 30/7/2012 13:02…………..it’s whose face Mark not who’s.

- harry, Fife, 30/7/2012 20:50

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Please tell me that this is for real – wayhey!

- Iain , Sidcup Kent, 30/7/2012 18:20

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Innovative? No, photoshopped. papers do it all the time!

- Crazy News, UK, 30/7/2012 17:20

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Phobos is not a natural moon, it has a monolith on it. It’s an ancient spacecraft, millions of years old that’s just been battered by time. See what Buzz Aldrin has to say about Phobos.
- craig, glasgow, 30/7/2012 11:11—Buzz is a liar, he claims there is aliens on the moon. NASA denies it. I take it Buzz believes he went to the moon also but I think that is a lie that is shared by NASA.

- lol, lol, 30/7/2012 16:23

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Yet even though Phobos is one of the smallest moons orbiting the eight planets, it is large enough to destroy all life on Earth in the event of a collision – which is, thankfully, almost impossible.—So you are telling us there is a chance of Phobos colliding with Earth. We are doomed.

- lol, lol, 30/7/2012 16:21

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The most logical explanation for Phobos is that it became a moon of Mars through becoming a captured asteroid, at some time in the distant past.
Too small to have been created in the violent way that Earth’s moon was formed, but large enough to have been captured into an orbit around the planet Mars.

- pjl20, Keighley, West Yorkshire, England, 30/7/2012 15:33

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‘Phobos is not a natural moon, it has a monolith on it. It’s an ancient spacecraft…’ – craig, glasgow,
Er, would love to see your proof for that…other than you saw it somewhere on the internet.
This whole idea of Phobos being hollow came from the Russian astrophysicist Shklovsky in the later 1950′s. His work was based on the idea of ‘secular acceleration.’ ie there were changes in Phobos’s orbit that were not cyclical or gravitational. But this work was based on the ‘drag’ caused by the Martian atmosphere – which at the time was thought to be much denser than it actually is. If you factor in the less dense atmosphere the secular acceleration can be explained by simple tidal effects.
Phobos does have a low density at about 1.8 g/cm*3, but it is entirely consistent with it being a carbonaceous C-type asteroids. Which is more or less a pile of rubble held together with ice and have voids within it.
Oh, the megolith is simply the central peak of Stickney crater!

- Danny, Bromley, Kent, 30/7/2012 13:58

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Actually it gives a ludicrously truncated idea of the scale of the solar system, which is not very massive anyway. Most people would think that a ‘moon’ this size is pretty puny, which it is. Get this: there are single stars that are virtually the size of our entire solar system and one such (Betelgeuse) is about to explode (if it hasn’t already) and yes, the Earth will know about it!

- bluplanet, Sevenoaks, 30/7/2012 13:44

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