Mars and its moons seens from new perspectives

On August 27, 2003, Mars will be closer to Earth than it has ever been
since the last ice age.
A small Phobos Datasheet
Greek: "Fear"
Discovery: 1877 by Asaph Hall
Size: 27 x 22 x 19 km (ellipsoid)
Rotation Per.: 7 hours 39.4 minutes
Phobos probably is a "caught" planetoid originally from the asteroid belt.
A small Deimos Datasheet
Greek: "Terror"
Discovery: 1877 by Asaph Hall
Size: 15 x 12 x 10 km (ellipsoid)
Rotation Per.: 30 hours 18.7 minutes
Deimos, like Phobos, seems to be a planetoid once "caught" by the gravititation of Mars

The Distance of the moons of Mars

Please notice: The illustration does not show the realistic relation of size between Mars, Phobos and Deimos
The extremely unstable orbit of the moon Phobos makes the size of its ellipse shrink about 18 meters per year. Therefore Phobos, in about 50 million years, will crash on its mother planet.
Mars with Deimos (Illustration)


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