[X] My Assistant

[brachiopod]

It was suggested that the "UFO" streak seen by Spirit might be an old orbiter or a meteor.

I wonder, could the "UFO" be a small undiscovered Martain moon? It might just be a few tens of feet across, orbiting very low, and would not have been visible from Earth due to the glare from the planet. Mars does have two very small moons now, why not more smaller moons? However arguing against this is that I think that they said that it was in polar orbit; pretty unusual for a moon and maybe even impossible to maintain over long periods of time.

Bryan

[djellison]

Oh - I think the Viking Orbiters were in highly eliptical orbits anyway - from the get go. They just raised the low point to increase the time before orbital decay killed it.

The higher eccentricity in the orbit made it more appropriate for data relay and deploying a lander ( deploy at the far point in the orbit and you only require a tiny delta V to intersect the atmosphere a few hours later )

Doug