The United Arab Emirates’ Martian orbiter Hope just provided a striking new view of Deimos, one of Mars’ two small moons. According to findings presented at the European Geosciences Union(opens in new tab) meeting this week, the observations from a flyby on March 10 indicate that Deimos is made of the same materials as Mars itself — suggesting the moon formed at the same time as Mars, and isn’t a captured asteroid, as some theories have proposed.
These observations revealed a never-before-seen perspective of Mars and Deimos.
“Mars was in the background — and that was just mind-blowing, honestly,” mission leader Hessa Al Matroushi(opens in new tab), of the Mohammed Bin Rashid Space Centre in Dubai, told Nature.com.
Humanity has been exploring Mars for decades, but our probes mostly stayed close to the Red Planet’s surface. Deimos is tidally locked with Mars, meaning the same side always faces the planet, so probes near Mars see only one side of the small moon, too — that is, until Hope arrived on the scene.
source livescience.com
(Image credit: Emirates Mars Mission)
