Two Mars moons in the news

Beate Czogalla
The Union-Recorder

April 14, 2008 10:09 pm

— Overshadowed by their famous boss the two moons of Mars rarely make the headlines. Most people are not even aware of the fact that the red planet even has moons! And truthfully, unlike some other moons in the solar system the two Mars moons are a little shrimpy.
Phobos (named after the Greek god of Fear — as in phobia) is a lumpy pockmarked rock some 13.5 miles across. With a gravity one-thousandth of that of Earth you’d have a hard time taking a walk on its surface without accidentally launching yourself into space. Phobos has an enormous crater named Stickney, named after its discoverer’s wife’s maiden name. The crater is proportionally so big that it’s a miracle that the object that crated it didn’t tear the entire moon to pieces.
Its sibling Deimos (named for the Greek word for “Panic”) is even smaller — only 7.5 miles across, and is another potato-shaped moon.
Phobos is closer to Mars than Deimos, so close in fact that you might see it zip across the Martian sky twice a day. Eventually it could crash into the planet or be torn apart by gravitational forces, creating a short-lived ring system.
Both moons are of great interest to the scientific community, however, since nobody really knows where they came from. They might even be captured strays from the asteroid belt located between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter. Phobos is particularly intriguing, as it might harbor frozen water ice, which could be crucial to future human exploration of Mars.
The High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) camera system on NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter took the latest images of the two little worlds, getting everybody excited about the stunning vistas and amazing quality and details of the pictures. We just can’t get enough of the exotic views and mind-boggling discoveries these mechanical emissaries keep sending home. It’s almost like being there, without the hassle of the long trip and the potential dangers facing every deep-space explorer.
Check out the HiRISE images at http://hirise.lpl.arizona.edu/