This is always assumed as an axiom. It is also wrong. Claims require sufficient evidence to prove them. Period. Labeling a claim as "extraordinary" does not in any way change the standard of proof for said claim.
So far, no one has put forward anything even remotely approaching sufficient proof that Phobos is artificial.
I don't believe that geometric shapes and structures existed before Home Depot but you know how dodgy aliens are always messing with time portals to bring lumber back to the future.
Indeed. Hoagland is a borderline crazy person, quite incapable of critical thinking. But the hollow interior aspect of the story is extremely interesting.
Note that the GRL paper asserting the existence of 'large voids' is based on analysis of a 2008 flyby. The recent one which took place in March anticipates mapping that interior. The ESA researchers say they'll present more information and pictures of the internal structure at a conference in September. 19 more flybys (including a closer one) are scheduled for august and December 2010; Phobos' orbit coincides with that of the Mars Express about every 5 months.
So yes, what you are staring at (probably, in shock at this point ...) is, in fact ... nothing less than what we've been saying all along ... since trying to educate the first Bush Administration on this data, in 1989 (see below):
That Phobos is, in fact--
An "ancient ... ex terrestrial ... very battered ... 15-mile-long"--
Spaceship.
That definitely isn't a scientific article. It sounds more like a conspiracy theory website.
It is. Richard Hoagland believes there is a secret space program interacting with/covering up an alien presence in our solar system. He's on Coast to Coast AM on a regular basis as their special space advisor.
He seems to have some interesting views. From his Wikipedia page:
Hoagland has commented at great length[66][67][68] on the so-called Norway Spiral, an extraordinary display of light seen over much of northern Norway on 9 December 2009, caused by the partial failure of a Russian SLBM test flight. Hoagland draws special attention to the fact that this event occurred close to President Barack Obama's arrival in Norway to accept the Nobel Peace Prize.
On 2–3 February 2010, on the Coast to Coast AM radio show,[69] Hoagland announced that the Russian SLBM had in fact been captured by Dark Forces intent on preventing mankind's exploration of outer space. These Dark Forces, he explained, were probably headed by Nazi officers who had escaped into space after World War II. To Hoagland, this was a sufficient explanation of President Obama's desire to cancel Project Constellation, since Obama had clearly accepted that any attempt to return to the Moon would be thwarted by the superior technology of the Nazis in space.
[..] provide meaningful new constraints on the
corresponding range of the body's porosity (30% ± 5%),
provide a basis for improved interpretation of the
internal structure. We conclude that the interior of
Phobos likely contains large voids. When applied to
various hypotheses bearing on the origin of Phobos, these
results are inconsistent with the proposition that Phobos
is a captured asteroid.
In other words, the moon is pretty porous and asteroids aren't, so it isn't a captured asteroid. However, that is only one of three hypotheses. In a previous post (http://webservices.esa.int/blog/post/7/989) they state:
The origin of Phobos is a mystery, in fact three scenarios
are considered possible. The first is that the moon is a
captured asteroid; the second is that it formed in-situ as
Mars formed below it, and the third is that Phobos formed
later than Mars, from debris flung into martian orbit when
a large meteorite struck the Red Planet. Among other
objectives, the Phobos flybys are designed to provide
clues towards answering this question.
So one of the three hypotheses has been ruled out. The other two are still candidates. There is no mention of any internal voids with inexplicably 'geometric' shapes
I have a feeling that most of this article is outright sensationalism. Sadly I don't have a subscription to the scientific site so I can't read the whole paper, but so far I haven't found any other source talking about the "geometric rooms" inside Phobos.
Phobos looks fairly normal on the outside, other than a few strange lines:
I was unclear about how they determined that the internal cavities were large. I get the same density if I have a rock with 30% of it's interior carved out by phasers, or if I have volcanic style (porous) rock.
Are their instruments sensitive enough to get a line graph of gravitational attraction as their sensors pass near the moon? If that were the case, you might be able to determine large voids vs porosity, but if they only get a single data point, than you wouldn't be able to.
