The Strange Mystery of Phobos' Tiger Stripes May Finally Be Solved

SPACE18 November 2022

ByMICHELLE STARR

Image of Phobos taken by the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. 

(NASA/JPL-Caltech/University of Arizona)

Martian moon Phobos is not long for this Universe.

According to astronomers' calculations, the potato-shaped satellite is drawing slowly, but inexorably, closer to its host planet. Eventually, within about 100 million years, the gravitational interaction between the two bodies will tear Phobos apart, giving the red planet a temporary dusty ring.

According to a new study, those gravitational interactions may already be having an observable effect. At least some of the mysterious, parallel shallow grooves that cover the moon's entire surface could be the result of fracturing as its orbit slowly decays and tidal forces tug ever harder at its bones.

"Our analysis supports a layered heterogeneous structure for Phobos with possible underlying failure-induced fractures, as the precursor of the eventual demise of the de-orbiting satellite," write a team of astronomers led by Bin Cheng of Tsinghua University in China and the University of Arizona.

Tidal forces that pull on bodies in a system are the result of their gravitational interaction, stretching their structures along an axis that runs between them.

Usually, any significant effect this distortion might have on a solid surface is pretty small. Where tidal forces can be easily observed in the movements of our planet's liquid oceans, visible effects on masses of land are less obvious.

That doesn't mean tidal forces between other solid bodies can't have more obvious consequences. Stretching caused by tidal forces can in some cases cause stress fracturing. We've seen this in Saturn's moon Enceladus, whose icy shell has deep, parallel fractures at its south pole caused by tidal stress.

With an orbit of just 7 hours and 39 minutes, Phobos is pretty close to Mars, drawing closer at a rate of around 1.8 centimeters per year. At that proximity, it's absolutely possible that tidal forces could induce surface fracturing on its 27 kilometer- (16.8 mile-) wide body. The idea that Phobos' stripes are the result of such an interaction has also been previously considered and found plausible.

However, it's unclear whether the current configuration and interaction of Phobos and Mars could produce the observed striping, and other explanations are also in the running. For instance, a 2018 study found that the stripes could be the result of rolling boulders.

So Cheng and his colleagues conducted 3D mathematical modeling explicitly examining the tidal stretching and squeezing of a layered Phobos-like body, with a loose rubbly exterior sitting over a cohesive layer below.

The researchers performed hundreds of simulations using their model. In a significant number of these simulations, tidal forces caused the cohesive layer to split and fracture in parallel grooves, causing the upper loose regolith to drain into the fractures below. The result is a stripey, striated surface very similar to regions observed on Phobos.

Not all areas of Phobos were consistent with the model, the team found. In particular, grooves around the moon's equator didn't match predictions. But the results do show that at least some of the stripes could be caused by fracturing as the moon spirals towards death by tidal disembowelment. This would mean that we are seeing the beginning of the end for Phobos.

These results, therefore, could have implications for studying other moons that are experiencing significant orbital decay, such as Neptune's moon Triton. The draining rubble could also expose pristine material on Phobos, could make the grooves a very interesting region of study for the upcoming Mars moon mission by the Japanese Space Agency.

This mission is expected to deliver conclusive evidence of the origin of these mysterious stripes – but tidal disruption is certainly appearing to be an intriguing possibility.

"Modeling Phobos as a rubble-pile interior overlaid by a cohesive layer, we find that the tidal strain could create parallel fissures with regular spacing," the researchers write in their paper.

"Our analysis suggests that some of the grooves lining the surface of Phobos are likely early signs of the eventual demise of the de-orbiting satellite."

Mashed potato, anyone?

The research has been published in The Planetary Science Journal.

Mystery Of How Mars’s Doomed Moon Got

Its Stripes May Have Been Solved

So long, Phobos, and thanks for all the fissures.

KATY EVANS
Managing Editor
Nov 18, 2022 

A few theories have been forward for what caused the strange stripes on Phobos, snapped here by NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter in 2008. 

NASA/JPL-Caltech/University of Arizona

There are many mysterious things about Mars’s doomed moon Phobos. We don’t know where it came from, what’s inside it, what the strange straight lines on its surface are, and it’s possibly in the process of being ripped apart by Mars. In fact, according to a new paper, that’s what’s causing Phobos’s weird tiger stripes.Top StoriesREAD MORLab-Grown Meat Just Took Another Step Closer ToOur Shelves


We know it’s going to die one day, probably in around 50 million years – the question is, how? Astronomers have discovered that the unusual parallel grooves covering the surface, thought to probably be the results of some ancient impact, are actually canyons full of dust that are growing wider as the extreme gravitational forces between moon and planet tear it apart.

Both of Mars’s moons are ominously named after the twin sons of Mars, the Roman god of war: Phobos, the larger of the two, for the god of fear and panic; and Deimos, the smaller, for his brother, the god of dread and terror. The reason Phobos is known as Mars’s “doomed “ moon, however, is that the satellite is caught in a death spiral around Mars, slowly falling towards the Red Planet at 1.8 centimeters (0.7 inches) every year (which is faster than Venice is sinking) until they eventually collide.

Both of Mars’s moons are tidally locked to the planet, meaning they always present the same face toward Mars. Tidal forces that pull on objects in space are due to their gravitational interactions and can have observable effects, like the effect the gravitational pull of the Moon has on Earth’s water in the form of tides.

Visible effects on the solid surface of objects in space, however, are usually pretty small. That’s not to say it doesn’t occur – the icy shell of Saturn’s moon Enceladus is covered in stress fractures from the tidal pull of its giant planet.

Orbiting Mars in just 7 hours and 39 minutes, Phobos is pretty close to Mars, making it plausible the tidal forces are causing the surface fracturing of the small moon. This idea has even been put forward before. Orbiting so near puts Phobos closer and closer to the Roche limit, the place where gravitational forces will pull any solid orbiting object apart. This occurs because the gravity on the planet-facing side is so much larger than on the other side it can't stay in one piece. Eventually, Phobos will be destroyed, forming a smaller version of Saturn's rings around Mars.

Alternative hypotheses have been put forward too. In 2018 it was suggested bouncing boulders carved the grooves on Phobos's surface.

In the new study, the team performed hundreds of simulations using a 3D mathematical model of a Phobos-like object, looking into the stretching and squeezing that occurs from tidal forces within a Phobos-like orbit. They found that by modeling Phobos as a "rubble-pile interior overlaid with a cohesive layer" many of the simulations created evenly spaced parallel fissures like the ones seen on the Martian moon.

“Fracture opening triggers drainage of upper loose material into these deep-seated valleys, which we show could lead naturally to the formation of groove-like structures,” they wrote.

Not all regions of Phobos matched the simulations – the grooves around its equator weren't explained by their predictions, for example. However, the findings do suggest that some (or even most) of the stripes are being caused by tidal fracturing as the moon continues on its doomed path to Mars collision.

All this makes for an intriguing target for the Japanese Space Agency's 2024 Martian Moons eXploration (MMX) mission to land spacecraft on both Phobos and Deimos, returning samples in 2029. We might even be able to witness the beginning of the end of Phobos.

The study is published in The Planetary Science Journal.

See A Solar Snake Slither Across The Sun In Bizarre Video

A European Space Agency of a solar snake making its way across the Sun's surface has been edited to show the phenomenon's progress.

By MATTHEW CREITH | 

In the night sky, astronomers have attempted for years to present their findings of the universe to a legion of devoted generations always wanting to discover more about the stars and galaxies around us. Recently, many people were treated to the sight of an asteroid shaped like a skull that flew past the Earth on Halloween, as well as a rare vampire sun that’s a feast for the eyes. Now, Live Science reports that a solar snake has slithered its way across the sun, and the sight was captured on film and uploaded to YouTube.

Set to the music composition of “Snake Dance” by Mike Franklyn, the YouTube video of the solar snake phenomenon on the sun appears to have generated quite a bit of buzz. The video has been viewed 32,000 times in the four days since it was posted to the Video From Space YouTube channel, where it depicts plasma moving across the sun in a snake like slithering motion. The time-lapse video was initially taken by the European Space Agency which reflects the phenomenon resulting from cool plasma flowing through the magnetic field of the sun.

The images of the solar snake were brought to the world’s attention directly from the Solar Orbiter two months ago, as the renowned satellite was put into place so that it can take observations of the sun from about 26 million miles away. This recent video seeks to showcase the solar snake moving across the sun in what appears to be a few seconds, but in reality, the sequence of events took about three hours in total. The European Space Agency estimates that the solar snake most likely moved at a pace equal to about 378,000 miles per hour.

It is understood by the European Space Agency that the plasma from the solar snake might have also traveled passed the Parker Solar Probe, a NASA invention that became the first device to enter the sun’s atmosphere. The Parker Solar Probe was initially launched to discover more details about solar physics, which it is doing in collaboration with the Solar Orbiter. Scientists believe that this collaboration could in fact help their colleagues in predicting the causations of space weather resulting from periodic eruptions from the sun and how that currently influences the Earth.

A lot of these observations of space from the European Space Agency and solar snakes seem to be straight out of the plot of a movie, with recent science fiction depictions coming to mind like Moonshot and Ad Adstra that might end up becoming reality in the not so distant future. Hollywood has long been known to take phenomenons from the sky and put them in central focus of blockbuster box office draws, including the Bruce Willis and Ben Affleck feature Armageddon. In that 1998 movie, scientists worked with NASA and deep-core drillers to help stop a huge asteroid from colliding with the planet in order to save everyone on Earth.

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Epic alleges Google paid $360 million to keep Activision from launching its own app store

New filings in Epic’s lawsuit against Google reveal that at least one point in time, Activision and Riot were considering making their own mobile app stores.


By JAY PETERS / @jaypeters
Nov 18, 2022, 

We could live in a world with more app stores. Photo by Stefan Etienne / The Verge

Activision Blizzard and Riot Games at one point told Google they might launch their own mobile app stores, according to new documents filed in Epic’s antitrust lawsuit against the search giant. The details came to light as part of allegations about major deals signed with the two companies. Google allegedly agreed to pay Activision about $360 million over three years and Riot about $30 million for a one-year deal.

In one document, Google exec Karen Aviram Beatty is reporting back from a conversation with Activision Blizzard’s now-CFO Armin Zerza one month before the two companies signed the huge deal. “If this deal falls through, [Zerza] claims that they will launch their own mobile distribution platform (partnering with another “major mobile company” — presume Epic), double down with Amazon / Twitch (or MSFT) for Cloud / eSports [sic], and pull away from Stadia,” Beatty wrote (emphasis mine). While Zerza may have just been doing some hardline negotiating, Activision has not yet launched its own app store on mobile, so it seems the company was happy with how the deal eventually turned out.

Another document is a deposition from an unnamed witness that seems to be someone who is or was involved with “Project Hug,” Google’s program designed to incentivize and support Play Store developers. In the deposition, the witness says that Riot Games told Google it was considering launching a competing Android app store. Later, the witness says that “Riot and Activision Blizzard King were the ones that were the most direct with us” about considering starting their own app stores.

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Google’s ‘Project Hug’ paid out huge sums to keep game devs in the Play Store, Epic filing claims

Project Hug agreements first came to light in August 2021 as part of an unredacted Epic complaint. But Epic, in a newly amended complaint filed Thursday, alleges Project Hug deals are designed to “prevent the developer from opening a competing store or otherwise distributing its apps outside of the Google Play Store.”

Epic originally launched Fortnite outside of Google Play in 2018, which let it bypass Google’s fees, and Epic has already argued that Project Hug was designed to entice developers to stick with Play instead of making their own stores. (Epic eventually brought Fortnite to the Play Store in 2020, but it was removed a few months later.) But based on the new documents, it seems Activision and Riot were thinking of striking out on their own.

In statements to The Verge, Google and Activision pushed back on Epic’s allegations. Google said that programs like Project Hug don’t prevent developers from creating their own app stores, and Activision said that Google didn’t make them agree not to compete with Google Play.

“Epic is mischaracterizing business conversations”

“Epic is mischaracterizing business conversations,” Google spokesperson Michael Appel said. “Programs like Project Hug provide incentives for developers to give benefits and early access to Google Play users when they release new or updated content; it does not prevent developers from creating competing app stores, as Epic falsely alleges. In fact, the program is proof that Google Play competes fairly with numerous rivals for developers, who have a number of choices for distributing their apps and digital content.”

“Activision testified in court that Google and Activision never entered into an agreement that Activision would not open its own app store,” Activision spokesperson Joe Christinat said. “Google never asked us, pressured us, or made us agree not to compete with Google Play. We submitted documents and testimony that prove this. Epic’s allegations are nonsense.”

Riot didn’t reply to a request for comment.

One of Epic’s exhibits also contains a list of more than 20 companies Google has signed Project Hug (now technically the “Games Velocity Program”) deals with as of July 2022. Activision and Riot are both listed, as are big gaming companies like EA, Niantic, Nintendo, Tencent, and Ubisoft.

Computer says there is a 80.58% probability painting is a real Renoir

Swiss company uses algorithm to judge whether contested Portrait de femme (Gabrielle) is genuinely by French artist

The disputed Portrait de femme (Gabrielle). Photograph: c/o Art Recognition

Linda Geddes 

Science correspondent

THE GUARDIAN
Sat 19 Nov 2022

Staring enigmatically at an unseen object to her right, the black-haired woman bears a striking resemblance to the person depicted in Pierre-Auguste Renoir’s painting Gabrielle, which Sotheby’s recently valued at between £100,000-150,000.

However, art connoisseurs disagree over whether the work, which is owned by a private Swiss collector, is the real deal. Now, artificial intelligence has waded in to help settle the dispute, and the computer has deemed that it probably is a genuine Renoir.

AI is increasingly being used to help adjudicate on whether valuable artworks are real or fake. Earlier this month, Art Recognition, the Swiss company that developed the technology, announced it had concluded that Switzerland’s only Titian – a work titled Evening Landscape with Couple, held by Kunsthaus Zürich – was probably not painted by the 16th-century Venetian artist.

Yet art connoisseurs have warned that the AI is only as good as the paintings it is trained on. If they are fake, or contain areas that have been touched up, it could create even more uncertainty.

Art Recognition was approached about the Renoir, titled Portrait de femme (Gabrielle), after The Wildenstein Plattner Institute – one of two institutes that publishes a comprehensive list of all known artworks by Renoir, known as a catalogues raisonnés – refused to include it in its listing.

The company used photographic reproductions of 206 authentic paintings by the French impressionist to teach its algorithm about his style, which to human observers is characterised by broken brushstrokes and bold combinations of complementary colours. To increase precision, it also split the images into smaller patches and showed these to the algorithm, as well as training it on a selection of paintings by artists with a similar style who were active at around the same time as Renoir.

Based on this assessment, it concluded there was an 80.58% chance that Portrait de femme (Gabrielle) was painted by Renoir.

Carina Popovici, Art Recognition’s CEO, believes that this ability to put a number on the degree of uncertainty is important. Speaking at a meeting on the use of forensics and technology in the art trade at the Art Loss Register in London on Monday, she said: “Art owners are often told by connoisseurs that it is their ‘impression’ or ‘intuition’ that a painting is genuine or not, which can be very frustrating. They really appreciate the fact that we are more precise.”

Encouraged by this result, the painting’s owner approached another Parisian group of experts, G-P.F.Dauberville & Archives Bernheim-Jeune, which publishes its own catalogues raisonnés of works by Renoir. After requesting a scientific analysis of the pigments in the painting, they too concluded that it was a genuine Renoir.

Dr Bendor Grosvenor, an art historian and presenter of BBC Four’s Britain’s Lost Masterpieces, worried that such technologies could devalue the contribution of experts in assessing an artwork’s authenticity.

“So far, the methods used to ‘train’ the AI programmes, and the fact that they say they can judge an attribution just from an iPhone photo, are unimpressive,” he said.

“The technology is especially weak in its inability to take into account a painting’s condition – so many old master paintings are damaged and disfigured by layers of dirt and overpaint which, without forensic inspection, makes it hard to discern what is and is not original.

“If any human art appraiser offered to give a ‘certificate of authenticity’ costing thousands of dollars based on nothing more than an iPhone photo and a partial knowledge of an artist’s oeuvre, they’d be laughed at.”

Popovici agreed that the quality of the training dataset was vital, and said they went to great lengths to ensure they only use photographs of authentic artworks. So far, they have trained their AI to recognise about 300 artists, including most of the French impressionist and old master painters.

“We understand that the connoisseurs might feel threatened by this technology, but we are not trying to push them out of the way,” Popovici said.

“We genuinely want to give them the possibility of using this system to help them reach a decision, perhaps in cases where they’re not so sure. But for that to happen, they have to be open to this technology.”

Julian Radcliffe, the chair of the Art Loss Register, which maintains the world’s largest private database of stolen art, antiques and collectables, said: “Artificial intelligence has an increasing role in helping to authenticate art but it must be allied to the expertise of connoisseurs who specialise in the artist, well-established science such as pigment analysis, and provenance research.

“Its advantage lies in its ability to give yes/no answers to, for example pattern analysis or matching, and to constantly improve, but its work has to be interpreted by a human who must have set the right question.

“The quest for absolute certainty in authentication has not been, and may never be reached – but we are edging closer.”

How Monet’s artistic vision shone through ailing eyes

 Claude Monet's Nympheas room at Paris's Museum of Orangerie in Paris. 

Photo by Raphael GAILLARDE/Gamma-Rapho via Getty Images


Dr. Howard Markel
NPR  Arts Nov 18, 2022 

Imagine the horror of being an artist of light and color who starts to lose their eyesight. French Impressionist Claude Monet’s vision began to deteriorate in his late 60s, when he started to experience a diminishing ability to discern different colors. The irony is that, because Monet’s paintings lack a specific kind of sharp precision, his medical problem wasn’t immediately obvious, but grew worse as he got older.

While walking through London’s National Gallery and Paris’s Musée d’Orsay recently, I was reminded of Monet, whose birthday would have been this week, on Nov. 14, as well as a brilliant article about the artist’s ocular health that I read – with great pleasure – in medical school.

Claude Monet in 1898, 10 years before he began to notice his eyesight was flagging. Photo via Getty Images

Ophthalmologist Dr. James Ravin published his essay on “Monet’s Cataracts” in JAMA in 1985, opening my eyes to the remarkable interactions of medicine, medical history and art, especially when—as Louis Pasteur once suggested—chance favored the prepared mind.

Thanks to Ravin, who studied Monet’s letters to his eye surgeons, examined a pair of the artist’s specially tinted cataract eyeglasses, and interviewed the technician who worked for the last ophthalmologist Monet consulted, we have a far better understanding of how cataracts — an opacity of the eye’s lens that develops with age — influenced his last works of art.

By 1918, the artist said that he could no longer perceive “colors with the same intensity” nor could he accurately interpret sunlight.

At the risk of sounding like a bumpkin, my first “impressions” of Monet’s later works was how blurry they appeared. In 1908, Ravin noted, distant objects in Monet’s paintings did seem more fuzzy. By 1918, the artist said that he could no longer perceive “colors with the same intensity” nor could he accurately interpret sunlight — a keystone of the Impressionist school. The color red, for example, became “muddy.” The color pink began to pale. The “intermediate or lower tones,” too, escaped him.

After 1918, Monet began to consult several eye surgeons, but received contradictory diagnoses, prognoses and treatment plans. Although healers have been removing cataracts since antiquity and doing so in a relatively painless manner for nearly 150 years, the operation Monet faced was still fraught with complications. He was, understandably, hesitant to go under the knife, perhaps being aware of how fellow artist Mary Cassatt underwent similar surgery with less than satisfactory results. He grew more and more depressed and admitted, “I have spent many cruel hours in my life, but never have I been as tortured.”

French statesman and former physician Georges Clemenceau commissioned Monet to paint his famous water lilies—a grand project that occupied the artist from 1914 until his death in 1926 – but also to get medical help for his eyesight. Although Monet promised to give the paintings to the nation of France, he grew so dissatisfied with his work and visual impairment that he tried to withdraw them in 1921. Fortunately, Clemenceau convinced him otherwise.

Monet’s “The House Seen from the Rose Garden,” 1922-1924. Image via Fine Art Images/ Heritage Images/ Getty Images

By 1922, his works lacked distinct forms and an art critic noted that they were becoming more monochromatic. After being declared legally blind that September, Monet was referred to a Parisian ophthalmologist named Charles Coutela. After receiving a diagnosis, Monet fretted over the prospect of surgery for his right eye, but eventually acquiesced.

“It is to my great chagrin that I regret having had this fatal operation.”

The artist’s recuperation was stormy and slow, even when he was wearing cataract glasses. The posterior lens capsule in his right eye had become opaque and he struggled to see.

“It is to my great chagrin that I regret having had this fatal operation,” Monet wrote to Coutela. “Pardon me for speaking so frankly and let me tell you that it is criminal to have put me in this situation.”

Claude Monet’s pond garden in Giverny, France, in 2020. Photo by REUTERS/Benoit Tessier

Monet underwent another operation in 1923 and recuperated over the next year, but still needed glasses with various tints. For the rest of his life, he continued to experience visual and color disturbances, but continued to paint. He died in December 1926, most likely due to chronic obstructive pulmonary disease from chronic smoking.

READ MORE: The medical story behind Thomas Eakins’ gory masterpiece

The next spring, his majestic water lilies were installed in the Musée de l’Orangerie in the Tuileries Garden behind the Louvre, where they can be seen to this day. Many art historians view the artist’s late work — completed under the veil of cataracts — as “a link to the abstract art of the 20th century,” Ravin wrote.

To those of us who have so-called perfect sight, or perhaps are a bit myopic, the water lilies are still masterpieces of vision, no matter what eye condition Monet suffered.

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Dr. Howard Markel  writes a monthly column for the PBS NewsHour, highlighting momentous historical events that continue to shape modern medicine. He is the director of the Center for the History of Medicine and the George E. Wantz Distinguished Professor of the History of Medicine at the University of Michigan and the author of “The Secret of Life: Rosalind Franklin, James Watson, Francis Crick and the Discovery of DNA’s Double Helix” (W.W. Norton, September ’21).

Banksy urges fans to go and STEAL from Guess in London's Regent Street for using his art without permission - after he lost copyright fight because he refused to reveal his identity

Banksy told fans to steal clothes from GUESS after the shop used his image

The reclusive artist said the brand had used images without permission

The Flower Thrower is visible in store's window promoting new Banksy range

Banksy does not have copyright on the image after losing legal battles

By MADELEINE ROSS FOR MAILONLINE

18 November 2022

Secretive graffiti artist Banksy has urged fans to go and 'help themselves' to clothes from GUESS on Regent Street after the shop used his artwork without permission.

In a post to his 11.5million followers on Instagram, the reclusive artist called out for shoplifters to give the clothing brand a taste of their own medicine.

'Attention all shoplifters.

'Please go to GUESS on Regent Street. They've helped themselves to my artwork without asking, how can it be wrong for you to do the same to their clothes?'

Social media users were quick to support the artist.

+16
View gallery


The anonymous graffiti artist encouraged fans on Instagram to steal clothes from the Regent Street shop. Banksy has had a number of trademarks removed in recent years after refusing to publicly reveal his identity

One user said: 'The NERVE to say 'with graffiti by Banksy.'

Others described the brand's use of the artist's image as 'embarrassing' and some users pledged to visit the store.

The GUESS X Brandalised collection was unveiled earlier this month and mixes 'Banksy's graffiti with "Guess attitude"'.

Brandalised says it offers licences to the world's most famous graffiti and works with brands including HUAWEI and Eleven Paris.

This is not the first time that the graffiti artist, known for his clever satirical designs, has run into copyright problems.

The artist was stripped of copyright for the Flower Thrower artwork - the one used by the GUESS store - in 2020, after a two-year legal battle with card firm Full Colour Black.

Artist Banksy has lost trademarks on Radar Rat and Girl With Umbrella after refusing to reveal his identity. He was accused by judges of 'acting in bad faith'

The shop has used the Flower Thrower as part of its GUESS x Brandalised collection. The artist disputes its usage and has encouraged fans to steal clothes from the store


The artist has never revealed his identity, although The Mail on Sunday named him as former public schoolboy Robin Gunningham

Banksy refused to reveal his identity to judges who refused to uphold his copyright to the image because, 'he cannot be identified as the unquestionable owner of such works as his identity is hidden'.

The anonymous street artist was stripped of three more trademarks in 2021, for Radar Rat, Laugh Now and Girl With Umbrella, taking the number of trademarks lost to four.

Banksy was told he was 'acting in bad faith' by remaining anonymous. He had previously said 'copyright is for losers'.

Banksy was named by The Mail on Sunday as former public schoolboy Robin Gunningham, although his identity has never been confirmed.

Has Banksy been spotted in Ukraine? Video shows mystery masked figure 'painting' mural confirmed to be artwork by elusive artist

Elusive British street artist Banksy may have been 'caught' painting a mural on a destroyed building in Ukraine.

CCTV footage doing the rounds on Ukrainian TikTok shows a mask-wearing man sneaking up to a wall in the city of Irpin, near Kyiv, before 'painting' on it.

While the footage appears to be a heavily staged spoof, it is possible it still shows Banksy - whose true identity has never been revealed.

The Irpin artwork, which shows a ballerina in a neck-brace, has been confirmed as a genuine Banksy and is one of seven he has painted in Ukraine in recent days.

The idea of spoofing a video of himself being 'caught' is in keeping with Banksy's mischievous sense of humour.

Has Banksy been caught on camera creating a mural in Ukraine?

Has Banksy been spotted in Ukraine? Video shows mystery..

Staged CCTV footage doing the rounds on Ukrainian TikTok shows a man sneaking up to a wall in the city of Irpin before 'painting' a Banksy on it


While the footage is heavily staged and the painting is obviously not happening live, it is still possible the British street artist spoofed it himself - in keeping with his sense of humour


The Irpin artwork - showing a ballerina in a neck-brace - has been confirmed as a genuine Banksy and is one of seven painted in Ukraine in recent days

Other works painted by Banksy in Ukraine include a man in a bathtub - who bears a passing resemblance to Charles Darwin - painted inside a destroyed apartment in Horenka, a village five miles north-east of Irpin.

Another painted on the walls of a destroyed school in the town of Borodyanka, west of Irpin, shows a child flipping an adult man on to his back in a judo match.

The male figure appears to be Vladimir Putin - who holds a judo back belt.

More works include a mobile missile launcher that incorporates a crude drawing of a penis where the rocket should be, children playing on a tank trap as if it were a see-saw, and a woman in hair curlers and a gas mask holding a fire extinguisher.

Banksy confirmed their authenticity in a video released on his Instagram account, entitled 'in solidarity with the people of Ukraine'.

Included in the footage is a woman and her daughter outside the bombed-out school, after the judo mural had been painted.

She says: 'It was a bomb here and many people died.

'My child used to go to this kindergarten. Don't cry honey, we already cried so much, we don't have any tears left.'

An artwork confirmed to be by Banksy on a street in Kyiv shows a Russian missile launcher with a crudely drawn penis in place of the rocket

Another of Banksy's Ukraine artworks shows a woman with hair curlers and a robe on, wearing a gas mask and holding a fire extinguisher near a burned-out building

Painted on the wall of a nursery destroyed by a Russian bomb, this Banksy shows a child throwing a man who resembles Putin in a judo match - a sport in which he has a black belt

Banksy began his unconventional artistic career as a graffiti artist in Bristol in the 1990s, and came to prominence painting satirical, political murals on buildings.

His signature style became black and white portraits painted using stencils, often showing human or animal figures performing an action or interacting with the world around them.

Some of his most well known works oppose conflict, including a portrait of a man hurling a bouquet of flowers - painted on the West Bank Wall which separates Jerusalem from Israel.

He is also known for playing with the idea of fake vs real.

During a residency in New York in 2013 he set up what appeared to be a tourist-trap stall in Central Park selling what seemed like replicas of his work for $60 a piece.

Except that the stall was real, and the artworks were genuine.

Despite being in place for a full day, just one customer bought two prints which later raised in excess of $100,000 when sold at auction.

Another piece that toyed with a similar idea and the worth of art was a print of 'Girl With Balloon' that partially shredded itself while being auctioned.

The half-destroyed artwork later went back on auction, and sold for many times its initial guide price.

Another of Banksy's new artworks in Ukraine shows a man who bears a passing resemblance to Charles Darwin having a bath in a destroyed house


A dancer also features in this piece by Banksy, painted in the town of Borodyanka, which shows the female figure balancing on top of rubble


Two children appear to be playing on a tank trap as if on a see-saw in this Banksy work, which appeared in downtown Kyiv

Banksy's Ukraine artworks appeared in cities and towns devastated by Russia's nine-month long war in Ukraine.

Irpin, where the ballerina with the neck brace appeared, was the site of some of the worst atrocities committed by Putin's troops.

Hundreds of civilians were massacred during a months-long occupation after Russian forces were stopped there while trying to advance on Kyiv.

When Putin's troops retreated they left behind evidence of their war crimes, including mass graves, torture chambers, and civilian bodies lying in the streets.

Ukraine is continuing to drive back the Kremlin's troops on the battlefield, with recent retreats coming in the south and north-east.

Russian forces fled from the area around Kharkiv, Ukraine's second-largest city, in September and recently withdrew from the city of Kherson.

Around half of the territory occupied by Moscow's armies at the peak of the invasion has now been recaptured, with Kyiv asking for more weapons to get the job done.

At the top of the list is anti-aircraft batteries to protect against increased Russia air strikes, but Ukraine also wants attack jets and tanks to help with its offensives.

WAIT, WHAT?!
Two Quebec men in court today for allegedly killing animals at safari park




GATINEAU, Que. — Two Quebec men will appear in a Gatineau, Que., courtroom today after they were charged for allegedly breaking into a safari animal park and killing three wild boar and one elk.

Provincial police say Mathieu Godard, 47, and Jeremiah Mathias-Polson, 21, were arrested Nov. 10 inside Omega animal park, located about 130 kilometres northwest of Montreal, and allegedly caught with four animal carcasses in their vehicle.

The two have been charged with wilfully killing animals kept for a lawful purpose, breaking and entering, illegally transporting firearms, and unlawfully firing a firearm during a break and enter.

Godard was released with conditions on Monday and is prohibited from going to the animal park in Montebello, Que., communicating with Mathias-Polson, carrying a firearm, and consuming drugs or alcohol.

Mathias-Polson was on probation at the time of his arrest and remains in custody.

Omega park spokesperson Billie-Prisca Giroux said in a recent news release that the park’s customers are safe and the incident was an “isolated event.”

“We have put all the necessary efforts in place to ensure that this situation does not happen again, for everyone’s safety and for the safety of our precious animals,” Giroux said.

According to his social media account, Godard is a professional hunting guide. He declined a request for comment.

Provincial police spokesperson Marc Tessier said in a recent interview that a security guard at the park called 911 at around 9:30 p.m. on Nov. 10 after noticing a break-in.

“A few minutes later, the guard heard noises similar to gunshots,” Tessier said. “The police quickly arrived and located and intercepted a vehicle. Both men were arrested. Police found four animal carcasses inside the vehicle.”

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 18, 2022.

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This story was produced with the financial assistance of the Meta and Canadian Press News Fellowship.