Inspiration- Phobos 1 and 2
There have been lots of little inspirations for the writing of The Agathon, not least of which is an interesting little event that happened on October 1988. To begin with, I was fascinated by this as I had never heard of it before. The Russians launched two probes in 1988 and set them on a course for the orbiting Martian moon of Phobos. They named them Phobos 1 and Phobos 2. Contact with Phobos 1 was lost shortly after launch. Phobos 2, however, made it to Mars and on March 26th 1989 began sending images back to Earth. What it sent back has baffled scientists. While photographing the Martian surface at an altitude of 6000 km it sent back an image of what looks like a large cylindrical shadow being cast by something very large in orbit. See image 1 and 2. It was determined to be a shadow as you could still see objects clearly through it. The probe was then turned around and sent to take photos of the orbiting moon Phobos. Contact with the probe was then suddenly lost. The last image the probe taken of Phobos was released by on December 1991 by Marina Popovich, a retired air force Colonel. See Image 3 + 4. A strange elliptical shape can be seen in the foreground.
While natural formations of an asteroid or some other object could explain this, I found it to be an interesting platform to start focusing on the Martian moon Phobos for my book. It is a great “what if” set of circumstances to use as a jumping off point for a sci-fi novel.
BUT THAT’S NOT ALL FOLKS !!
While you can certainly draw similarities with my use of a strange monolith on the surface of Phobos to Stanley Kubrick’s epic movie 2001 A Space Odyssey, my main line of inspiration was actually ANOTHER strange formation found on Phobos. YES there actually IS a strange Monolith on the surface of Phobos. See image 5+6. This is a very strange object jutting out of the surface of the moon and it was these photos that inspired the Monolith in The Agathon.
Check out the video of Buzz Aldrin talking about it on CSPAN just under images 5+6
The unknown mysteries not only behind these wonderful images are fantastic fodder for a writer to go play with. We may never know the answers to these, but in my opinion, maybe that’s the best way to keep it. Humans love a mystery. What do you think these photo’s represent?
Forward we go
Colin
Image 1 + 2
Image 3 + 4
(Marina Popovich with last photo Phobos 2 took. You can see the odd Cylindrical object below the moon.)
Image 4
Video of Phobos 1 and 2 incident
Image 5+6
Buzz Aldrin talks about the Monolith on Phobos
