Moons Of Mars

Next month in october 2020 mars will supplant jupiter as the sky s 4th brightest.

Moons of mars. Compared to the earth s moon the moons phobos and deimos are small. See stunning photos of phobos and deimos the small moons of mars as seen by spacecraft on and orbiting the red planet. Ninety four years later nasa s mariner 9 spacecraft got a much better look at the two moons from its orbit around mars. These next several nights september 4 5 and 6 2020 let the moon introduce you to the red planet mars.

Mars moons are among the smallest in the solar system. The moons of mars are phobos and deimos. Arthur hayall of the university of the sierras reports that the moons of mars are actually artificial satellites. The appearance of phobos and deimos is like that of asteroids.

Phobos is a bit larger than deimos and orbits only 3 700 miles 6 000 kilometers above the martian surface. Besides mars is the only planet among the four. No known moon orbits closer to its planet. It was given angelina s maiden name.

This view of the martian moons phobos and deimos comes from a set of photos taken by nasa s mars rover curiosity on aug. 1 2013 as phobos the larger one passed in front of deimos from. It whips around mars three times a day while the more distant deimos takes 30 hours for each orbit. Moreover the moon that has its orbit closer to mars than the other is phobos which is also the larger one.

Both were discovered by asaph hall in august 1877 and are named after the greek mythological twin characters phobos panic fear and deimos terror dread who accompanied their father ares into battle. In 1959 walter scott houston perpetrated a celebrated april fool s hoax in the april edition of the great plains observer claiming that dr. Both phobos and deimos were discovered in 1877 by american astronomer asaph hall. But don t forget that our planetary neighbor is adorned with two moons.

Mars is the darling of many planetary scientists who continue to visit it through increasingly advanced robotic explorers. The two moons of mars are phobos and deimos. Ares god of war was known to the romans as mars. Phobos fear and deimos panic were named after the horses that pulled the chariot of the greek war god ares the counterpart to the roman war god mars.

Phobos is the largest moon of mars with deimos as a smaller satellite. Moons of mars mars has two small moons. The two moons were discovered in 1877 however their origin is still controversial. They are irregular in shape.