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This image provided by the UAE Space Agency shows Mars and its moon Deimos in the foreground. In March 2023, the United Arab Emirates’ Amal spacecraft — Hope Arabic — flew within 62 miles of Deimos. (UAE Space Agency via Associated Press)
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) — A spacecraft around Mars has sent back the most detailed photos yet of the red planet’s tiny moon.
The United Arab Emirates’ Amal spacecraft flew within 62 miles (100 kilometers) of Deimos last month, a close-up of which was released Monday. Amal — Arabic for Hope — got the price of two for one when Mars photo-bombed some images. This is the closest a spacecraft has come to Deimos in nearly half a century.
The spacecraft also observed that the oddly shaped, cratered far side of the Moon has been largely unexplored, measuring just 9 miles by 7 miles by 7 miles (15 kilometers by 12 kilometers by 12 kilometers).
Mars’ other moon, Phobos, is nearly twice as large, and because it orbits Mars much closer—only 3,700 miles (6,000 kilometers) away, it’s the closest moon in our solar system to Earth. It’s also better understood.
Deimos’ orbit around Mars stretches 14,000 miles (23,000 kilometers). This is close to the interior of the spacecraft’s orbit — “that’s what makes observing Deimos such a compelling idea,” said Hessa al-Matroushi, the mission’s chief scientist.
“Phobos has gotten the most attention by far – now it’s Deimos’ turn!” she added in an email.
Al-Matroushi and other scientists at the UAE Space Agency say the new images suggest that Deimos is not an asteroid that was captured in orbit around Mars long ago, the leading theory until now. Instead, they say the Moon appears to have originated on Mars — possibly from a larger Martian moon or from Mars itself.
The findings were presented Monday at the European Geosciences Union Congress in Vienna.
According to al-Matroushi, this year Amal will continue to sweep Deimos, but not as closely as the March 10 encounter.
In 1977, NASA’s Viking 2 came within 19 miles (30 kilometers) of Deimos. Since then, other spacecraft have imaged Deimos, but from farther away.
Amar flew to Mars on July 19, 2020, one day before the 50th anniversary of the first moon landing (that is, Earth’s Moon) by Apollo 11’s Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin.
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The Associated Press Health and Science Division is supported by the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Science and Educational Media Group. The Associated Press is solely responsible for all content.
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